Acclaimed British novelist Frederick Forsyth, known for his gripping spy thrillers, has died at the age of 86. Forsyth’s literary career was marked by immense success, with over 75 million books sold worldwide. His agent, Jonathan Lloyd, paid tribute to the author, saying, “We mourn the passing of one of the world’s greatest thriller writers”.
Forsyth’s journey to becoming a bestselling author began when he was approached by Britain’s MI6 spy agency while reporting on Nigeria’s Biafra War. He leveraged these experiences to fuel his literary inspiration. Notably, his novel “The Day of the Jackal” achieved immediate success upon its release in 1971 and was later adapted into a film. Interestingly, Venezuelan revolutionary Illich Ramirez Sanchez was nicknamed “Carlos the Jackal” due to the novel’s popularity.
In his autobiography, “The Outsider: My Life in Intrigue,” Forsyth humorously noted, “There are several ways of making quick money, but in the general list, writing a novel rates well below robbing a bank.” This gamble paid off when he penned “The Day of the Jackal” in just 35 days. Forsyth went on to write a string of bestsellers, including “The Odessa File” (1972) and “The Dogs of War” (1974), with his 18th novel, “The Fox,” published in 2018.
Before becoming a renowned author, Forsyth trained as an air force pilot and utilized his linguistic talents – speaking French, German, Spanish, and Russian – to work with the Reuters news agency in Paris and East Berlin during the Cold War. He later became disillusioned with the BBC’s bureaucracy and its coverage of Nigeria, which led him to pursue a different path.
Forsyth’s experiences as a spy and journalist significantly influenced his writing. He was asked to conduct a mission for MI6 in communist East Germany in 1973, where he received a package from a Russian colonel. Although he was never paid by MI6, he received help with book research and submitted draft pages to ensure he didn’t divulge sensitive information.
In his later years, Forsyth turned his attention to politics, writing columns for the anti-European Union Daily Express. He lost a fortune in an investment scam in the 1980s and had to write more novels to support himself. Forsyth was married twice, first to Carole Cunningham and then to Sandy Molloy in 1994, and had two sons, Stuart and Shane, with his first wife.