Frances Hélène Jeanne Stonor Saunders

FRSL The Royal Society of Literature (RSL) is a learned society founded in 1820 by George IV of the United Kingdom, King George IV to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent". A charity that represents the voice of literature in the UK, the ...

(born 14 April 1966) is a British journalist and historian.

Early life

Frances Stonor Saunders is the daughter of Julia Camoys Stonor and Donald Robin Slomnicki Saunders. Her father, who died in 1997, was a Jewish refuge from Bucharest, Romania, born to a British national with Polish and Russian ancestry. Jews named Slomnicki died in the

Belzec extermination camp Belzec (English: or , Polish: , approximately ) was a Nazi German extermination camp in occupied Poland. It was built by the SS for the purpose of implementing the secretive Operation Reinhard, the plan to murder all Polish Jews, a major p ...

; the fate of two great-aunts Saunders was unable to determine. Her parents divorced when Saunders was eight. Saunders attended

St Mary's School Ascot St Mary's School Ascot is a Roman Catholic independent day and boarding school for girls in Ascot, Berkshire, England.2011 ISI InspectioReport/ref> It is a member of the Girls' Schools Association. It was named 2015 " Public School of the Yea ...

, where she was head girl.

Career

A few years after graduating (in 1987)"Frances Stonor Saunders"
(biography). ''Shadow Company.'' with a first-class honours degree in English from

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

(having studied at St Anne's College), Saunders embarked on a career as a television film-maker. ''Hidden Hands: A Different History of Modernism'', made for

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by Channel Four Television Corporation. It is state-owned enterprise, publicly owned but, unlike the BBC, it receives no public funding and is funded en ...

in 1995, discussed the connection between American art critics and

Abstract Expressionist Abstract expressionism in the United States emerged as a distinct art movement in the aftermath of World War II and gained mainstream acceptance in the 1950s, a shift from the American social realism of the 1930s influenced by the Great Depressi ...

painters with the

CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA; ) is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with advancing national security through collecting and analyzing intelligence from around the world and ...

. '' Who Paid the Piper?: CIA and the Cultural Cold War'' (1999) (in the USA: ''The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters''), her first book, was developed from her work on the documentary, concentrating on the history of the covertly CIA-funded

Congress for Cultural Freedom The Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF) was an anti-communist cultural organization founded on 26 June 1950 in West Berlin. At its height, the CCF was active in thirty-five countries. In 1966 it was revealed that the Central Intelligence Agency w ...

. The book won the

Royal Historical Society The Royal Historical Society (RHS), founded in 1868, is a learned society of the United Kingdom which advances scholarly studies of history. Origins The society was founded and received its royal charter in 1868. Until 1872 it was known as the H ...

's William Gladstone Memorial Prize and was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award. It has since been published in fifteen languages. Saunders' other works reflect her academic background as a

medievalist The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , , "little star", is a Typography, typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a star (heraldry), heraldic star. Computer scientists and Mathematici ...

. In 2005, after some years as the arts editor and associate editor of the ''

New Statesman ''The New Statesman'' (known from 1931 to 1964 as the ''New Statesman and Nation'') is a British political and cultural news magazine published in London. Founded as a weekly review of politics and literature on 12 April 1913, it was at first c ...

'', Saunders resigned in protest over the sacking of Peter Wilby, the then-editor. In 2004 and 2005 for Radio 3, she presented ''Meetings of Minds'', two three-part series on the meetings of intellectuals at significant points in history. She is also a regular contributor to Radio 3's '' Nightwaves'' and other radio programmes. Her second book, ''Hawkwood: Diabolical Englishman'' (in the US: ''The Devil's Broker''), recounts the life and career of

John Hawkwood Sir John Hawkwood ( 1323 – 17 March 1394) was an English soldier who served as a mercenary leader or ''condottiero'' in Italy. As his name was difficult to pronounce for non-English-speaking contemporaries, there are many variations of it in ...

, a

condottiere Condottieri (; singular: ''condottiero'' or ''condottiere'') were Italian military leaders active during the Middle Ages and the early modern period. The term originally referred specifically to commanders of mercenary companies, derived from the ...

of the 14th century. English-born, Hawkwood (1320–1394) made a notorious career as a participant in the confused and treacherous power politics of the

Papacy The pope is the bishop of Rome and the Head of the Church#Catholic Church, visible head of the worldwide Catholic Church. He is also known as the supreme pontiff, Roman pontiff, or sovereign pontiff. From the 8th century until 1870, the po ...

, France, and Italy. ''The Woman Who Shot Mussolini'' (2010) is a biography of

Violet Gibson Violet Albina Gibson (31 August 1876 – 2 May 1956) was an Irish woman who attempted to assassinate Benito Mussolini in 1926. She was released without charge but spent the rest of her life in a psychiatric hospital in England. She was the daug ...

, the Anglo-Irish aristocrat who shot

Benito Mussolini Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (29 July 188328 April 1945) was an Italian politician and journalist who, upon assuming office as Prime Minister of Italy, Prime Minister, became the dictator of Fascist Italy from the March on Rome in 1922 un ...

in 1926, wounding him slightly. Of Saunders' book, ''The Suitcase: Six Attempts to Cross a Border'', Elisa Segrave wrote in ''

The Spectator ''The Spectator'' is a weekly British political and cultural news magazine. It was first published in July 1828, making it the oldest surviving magazine in the world. ''The Spectator'' is politically conservative, and its principal subject a ...

'': "This is a complex, occasionally frustrating book with fascinating historical nuggets." The author "certainly brings home the anguish of war. She also examines memory, its importance and its unpredictability." James McConnachie wrote in ''

The Sunday Times ''The Sunday Times'' is a British Sunday newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of N ...

'': "As for that suitcase, it would be unfair to say more. I’ll only warn that the payoff isn’t a Hollywood explosion. It is more an arthouse twist — but one that, like this book, will haunt you." Saunders was awarded the PEN Ackerley Prize for outstanding memoir and autobiography for ''The Suitcase: Six Attempts to Cross a Border'' in July 2022. Saunders was elected as a Fellow of the

Royal Society of Literature The Royal Society of Literature (RSL) is a learned society founded in 1820 by King George IV to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent". A charity that represents the voice of literature in the UK, the RSL has about 800 Fellows, elect ...

in 2018."Frances Stonor Saunders."
''

''. Archived fro
the original.
Accessed January 16, 2020. She lives in

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

Works

Articles

"Modern art was CIA 'weapon'."
''

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...

'' (Jun. 14, 2013) (orig. 22 Oct. 1995).
"The Writer and the Valet."
''

London Review of Books The ''London Review of Books'' (''LRB'') is a British literary magazine published bimonthly that features articles and essays on fiction and non-fiction subjects, which are usually structured as book reviews. History The ''London Review of Book ...

'', vol. 36, no. 18 (Sep. 25, 2014).
"Stuck on the Flypaper: Frances Stonor Saunders on MI5 and the Hobsbawm File."
''

'', vol. 37, no. 7 (Apr. 9, 2015).
"Where on Earth Are You?"
''

'', vol. 38, no. 5 (Mar. 3, 2016).
"The Suitcase."
''

'', vol. 42, no. 15 (Jul. 30, 2020).
"The Suitcase: Part Two."
''

'', vol. 42, no. 16 (Aug. 3, 2020).
"The Suitcase: Part Three."
''

'', vol. 42, no. 17 (Sep. 10, 2020).

Books

* '' Who Paid the Piper?: CIA and the Cultural Cold War''. London:

Granta ''Granta'' is a literary magazine and publisher in the United Kingdom whose mission centres on its "belief in the power and urgency of the story, both in fiction and non-fiction, and the story's supreme ability to describe, illuminate and make ...

(1999). . ** U.S. ed.
''The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters''.
New York:

The New Press The New Press is an independent non-profit public-interest book publisher established in 1992 by André SchiffrinReid, Calvin (December 2, 2013)"New Press Founder André Schiffrin Dead at 78" ''Publishers Weekly''. Accessed August 1, 2014. (Chev ...

(2000). .Baumol, William J., and Hilda Baumol
Review of ''The Cultural Cold War'' by Frances Stonor Saunders.
''Journal of Cultural Economics'', vol. 25, no. 1 (Feb. 2001), pp. 73-75. . * ''Hawkwood: Diabolical Englishman''. London:

Faber and Faber Faber and Faber Limited, commonly known as Faber & Faber or simply Faber, is an independent publishing house in London. Published authors and poets include T. S. Eliot (an early Faber editor and director), W. H. Auden, C. S. Lewis, Margaret S ...

(2004). . ** U.S. ed.: ''The Devil's Broker: Seeking Gold, God, and Glory in Fourteenth-Century Italy''. New York: Fourth Estate (2005). .
''The Woman Who Shot Mussolini''.
London:

(2010). .

Documentaries

* ''Hidden Hands: A Hidden History of Modernism''. London:

(1995). 4 episodes. ** Incl. 32-page booklet. .

References

External links

Articles
at MuckRack * *
Frances Stonor Saunders
at

encyclopedia.com ''Encyclopedia.com'' is an online encyclopedia. It aggregates information, images, and videos from other published dictionaries, encyclopedias, and reference works. History The website was launched by Infonautics in March 1998. Infonautics w ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Saunders, Frances Stonor 1966 births Living people Alumni of St Anne's College, Oxford English people of American descent English historians English journalists Writers from London Historians of the Central Intelligence Agency