Buchan, James

(British, 1954– )

Buchan, a former foreign correspondent for the Financial Times, is the author of six novels and two works of non-fiction. Rooted in the real world, with acute psychological portraits and thriller-like structures, his novels deal with individuals trapped by political circumstance. Issues of free will and determinism are a major theme as characters try to find personal resolution. Buchan tackles a wide range of situations: Iran in 1974 in A Good Place to Die (1999), as John Pitt, a young English teacher, falls in love with a pupil and is forced to escape; Germany during the cold war in Heart's Journey in Winter (1995, winner of the Guardian Fiction Prize); West Beirut in A Parish of Rich Women (1984, winner of the Whitbread First Novel award). Buchan writes beautifully and the backgrounds to his novels are as interesting and informative as the stories and characters are seductive.

Sebastian Faulks, Nicholas Shakespeare  SR