John Biggins | |
|---|---|
 John Biggins | |
| Born | October 1949 Bromley, Greater London, England |
| Occupation | Novelist |
John Biggins (born 31 October 1949) is a British writer of historical fiction. He is best known for his Prohaska series of novels set in the Austro-Hungarian Navy during the early years of the 20th Century.
Biggins was born in Bromley, Greater London, England. He attended Chepstow Secondary and Lydney Grammar Schools, and studied history at the University of Wales from 1968 to 1971. He continued his graduate studies in Poland.
As a young man Biggins worked as a civil servant for the UK Ministry of Agriculture. He also worked as a journalist and did technical writing before becoming an author of historical fiction.
In 1991 the first of Biggins' Prohaska novels, A Sailor of Austria, was published by Secker & Warburg. The story is set in the Austro-Hungarian Navy during World War I, and vividly depicts life on board the primitive and dangerous U-boats of the period. [1] Kirkus Reviews reported the book to be well researched, but called it "bland and mundane". [2] The Historical Novel Society, on the other hand, deemed it "Excellent military fiction", and similarly praised his later book Tomorrow The World. [3]
In 2010 Biggins began a new series of novels, and self-published his book, The Surgeon's Apprentice. This novel was included by The Spectator magazine on its "Books of the Year" list, [4] described as a "soundly researched tale of sea-faring and warfare." In 2021 he published its sequel, "The Lion Ascendant".
His previous books are now being distributed by Bonanova Editions.
Ottokar Prohaska, the fictional protagonist, is a Czech by birth, but an Austrian naval officer by vocation. His exploits have elements of both adventure and comedy. The historical background is the last years of the Austro-Hungarian empire, and in particular, in the case of two of the novels, World War I. [5] The reader finds the hero/anti-hero, at different times, a gunnery officer aboard a ship, a submarine commander, and a member of the flying corps.
Transylvania is a historical and cultural region in Central and Eastern Europe, encompassing central Romania. To the east and south its natural border is the Carpathian Mountains and to the west the Apuseni Mountains. Broader definitions of Transylvania also include the western and northwestern Romanian regions of Crișana and Maramureș, and occasionally Banat. Historical Transylvania also includes small parts of neighbouring Western Moldavia and even a small part of south-western neighbouring Bukovina to its north east. The capital of the region is Cluj-Napoca.
The Austro-Hungarian Navy or Imperial and Royal War Navy was the naval force of Austria-Hungary. Ships of the Austro-Hungarian Navy were designated SMS, for Seiner Majestät Schiff. The k.u.k. Kriegsmarine came into being after the formation of Austria-Hungary in 1867, and ceased to exist in 1918 upon the Empire's defeat and subsequent collapse at the end of World War I.
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Austria-Hungary did not have a common flag. However, the black-gold flag of the ruling Habsburg Dynasty was sometimes used as a de facto national flag and a common civil ensign was introduced in 1869 for civilian vessels. Until 1918, the k.u.k. War Fleet continued to carry the Austrian ensign it had used since 1786; and the regiments of the k.u.k. Army carried the double-eagle banners they had used before 1867, as they had a long history in many cases. New ensigns created in 1915 were not implemented due to the ongoing war. At state functions, the Austrian black-yellow and the Hungarian red-white-green tricolor were used.
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is a 2022 novel by Gabrielle Zevin. Amazon named it the best book of 2022.
In this sequel to Mr. Biggins's first novel, "A Sailor of Austria," Otto recounts his exploits from 1912 through the early years of World War I, starting with his rash decision to enlist as a naval pilot.
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