Jack Fairweather (writer)

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Jack Fairweather (born in 1978), is a British journalist and author.

Contents

Early life

Fairweather was born in Shrewsbury, England in 1978. [1] His sister, Chloé Fairweather, directed Dying to Divorce , a film selected as the British entry for the Best International Feature Film at the 94th Academy Awards in 2021. [2] He was educated at Atlantic College, and at Lincoln College at the University of Oxford. [3]

Career

Fairweather was a freelance correspondent embedded with British troops during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. He was a stringer for The Daily Telegraph in Baghdad, where he met his wife Christina Asquith, a journalist working on contract to cover education issues in Iraq for New York Times. [3] Fairweather claims he survived an attempted kidnapping and an attempted suicide bombing in Iraq. [3]

He later contributed freelance articles from Afghanistan to the PostGlobal blog hosted by The Washington Post . [3] His war coverage has won a British Press Award and an Overseas Press Club award citation. [4]

His book The Volunteer, a biography about Witold Pilecki, a Polish resistance fighter who infiltrated Auschwitz during the Holocaust and Second World War, won the 2019 Costa Book Award. [5] [6] "Witold Pilecki is a man whose footsteps I was following for 5 years. He is an extraordinary human being who exposed himself to the worst danger in Auschwitz and he risked his life in so many ways to report what was happening in Auschwitz. He made up a group of people who smuggled news to get them out from the camp" [7]

Books

Awards

The Good War was a finalist for the 2015 Lionel Gelber Prize. [16]

The Volunteer won the Costa Book of the Year Award 2019. [4]

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<i>The Volunteer</i> (book) 2019 book by Jack Fairweather about Witold Pilecki

The Volunteer: The True Story of the Resistance Hero Who Infiltrated Auschwitz is a 2019 book which presents research by British writer Jack Fairweather, a former Washington Post war correspondent, into the life of Witold Pilecki, a Polish soldier and Home Army resistance fighter who infiltrated the infamous Auschwitz concentration camp. The book was met with positive reception from critics and won the Costa Book Awards – Book of the Year prize that year.

<i>The Auschwitz Volunteer</i> 2012 nonfiction book

The Auschwitz Volunteer: Beyond Bravery is a nonfiction 2012 book consisting of a report by Polish resistance fighter Witold Pilecki, an introduction written by historian Norman Davies and a foreword by Chief Rabbi of Poland Michael Schudrich. The diary has been translated by Jarek Garliński and was published in English by Aquila Polonica. It covers a period of about four years during which Pilecki was on a mission to infiltrate the Auschwitz concentration camp. Pilecki wrote his report in Polish in the summer of 1945 for his Polish Army superiors; this book was the first time his report was published in English. His mission had two principal goals: smuggle out intelligence about the camp, and build a resistance organization among the prisoners.

<i>Fighting Auschwitz</i>

Fighting Auschwitz: The Resistance Movement in the Concentration Camp is a 1975 book by Polish historian Józef Garliński about the resistance movement in Auschwitz, published by Julian Friedmann Publishers. The book's primary focus is the Związek Organizacji Wojskowej underground organization formed by the Polish resistance fighter, Witold Pilecki, known for infiltrating the Auschwitz concentration camp to organize resistance on the inside. The book, despite being close to 50 years old, is still considered a "definitive study of the topic" by modern scholars.

References

  1. ↑ "Costa Book Awards 2019: Category Winners Announced". Costa. Retrieved 29 June 2021.
  2. ↑ "Dying to Divorce". IMDb.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 Picard, Ken (19 June 2019). "Jack Fairweather Writes Story of Unsung Hero at Auschwitz". Seven Days. Retrieved 25 June 2019.
  4. 1 2 Christian, Bonnie (28 January 2020). "Jack Fairweather wins Costa Book of the Year with The Volunteer". Evening Standard. London. Retrieved 29 June 2021.
  5. ↑ "'Lost' story of Auschwitz hero wins Costa Prize". BBC News. 29 January 2020. Retrieved 29 January 2020.
  6. ↑ Bakare, Lanre (28 January 2020). "Costa prize: Jack Fairweather wins book of the year with The Volunteer". The Guardian. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 29 January 2020.
  7. ↑ Jack Fairweather - Hyde Park Civilizace | Česká televize (in Czech), retrieved 12 July 2023
  8. ↑ "A War of Choice (brief review)". The Independent. 6 October 2012.
  9. ↑ Hastings, Max (23 October 2011). "A War of Choice (book review)". The Times. Retrieved 25 June 2019.
  10. ↑ Rayment, Sean (6 January 2012). "A War of Choice: the British in Iraq 2003-9 (book review)". The Telegraph. Retrieved 25 June 2019.
  11. ↑ Mallet, Victor (5 December 2014). "The Good War (book review)". Financial Times. London. Retrieved 25 June 2019.
  12. ↑ Farmer, Ben (4 December 2014). "The Good War: the Battle for Afghanistan 2006–14; book review: 'sobering and riveting'". The Telegraph. Retrieved 25 June 2019.
  13. ↑ "How the West Failed Afghanistan (book review)". New Statesman. 11 June 2015. Retrieved 25 June 2019.
  14. ↑ name="TfNhorrors"
  15. ↑ "The man who volunteered for Auschwitz: New bio explores extraordinary life of hero who exposed Holocaust horrors". THEfirstNEWS. 26 June 2019. Retrieved 26 June 2019.
  16. ↑ Wittmeyer, Alicia Q. (25 March 2015). "Introducing the 2015 Lionel Gelber Finalists. Today's Nominee: Jack Fairweather". Foreign Policy. Retrieved 26 June 2019.
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