Ben Macintyre is a columnist and Associate Editor on The Times. He has worked as the newspaper's correspondent in New York, Paris and Washington. He is the author of nine books including Agent Zigzag, shortlisted for the Costa Biography Award and the Galaxy British Book Award for Biography of the Year 2008, the number 1 bestseller Operation Mincemeat and, most recently, the Richard & Judy Book Club selection, Double Cross. He lives in London with his wife and three children.
Fascinating, provocative and highly eccentric * New York Times * Witty, intelligent and told with a rollicking, trenchant style * Boston Globe * Macintyre's journey to rediscover Nueva Germania deep in the Paraguayan forest and his descriptions of what he found, make compelling reading. But more fascinating still is the story Macintyre interleaves with his discovery, that of Elisabeth's own life and her deliberate distortions of her brother's philosophy to make it accord with her own -- Julia Neuberger * Sunday Times * Remarkable and entertaining ... Macintyre weaves the many threads together with considerable literary skill, jumping backwards and forwards between Paraguayan past and present, between the Germany of Bismarck and of Hitler ... a parade of exotic figures and tall tales inhabit the story -- Richard Overy * Observer * Macintyre's powers as a writer are wonderfully responsive. This year's crop of travel books is unlikely to yield anything more bizarrely compelling -- Jonathan Keates * Independent * Excellent travel writing: vivid, sympathetic, humorous -- R.J. Hollingdale * Guardian * Macintyre's report from the tattered remnants is startling, dark and absorbing * Independent *