Edward Wilson (novelist)

Personal life

Wilson was born in Baltimore, Maryland. His Anglo-Indian-descended father, a merchant sailor, died when Edward was just six months old, leaving Edward's mother to raise him and his two brothers. He did his secondary education at the Baltimore Polytechnic Institute before going on to the University of Virginia on a Reserve Officers' Training Corps scholarship. He was shipped off to the Vietnam War in the aftermath of the 1968 Tet Offensive as a member of a Special Forces unit; he stated that "I didn't think it was right to stay at home, plus if you were an officer there was only a one in ten chance of being hurt", but the experience sharpened his opposition to the foreign policy of the United States. For his actions in the war he was decorated with the Bronze Star Medal and the Army Commendation Medal for Valor.

After the war, Wilson travelled in Canada and later spent time in Bremen, Germany as a language student. In 1976 he settled in Suffolk, England, where he worked as a teacher for three decades. He naturalised as a British citizen in 1983 and renounced his US citizenship.

Politically, Wilson is a socialist and a supporter of trade unions.

A River in May

Wilson's debut novel A River in May, published in 2002, was based on his experiences in the Vietnam War. As he stated, the book "expelled my battlefield demons". It was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize.

The Envoy

The Envoy is set in Britain in the 1950s, and discusses an American plot to sabotage USSR–UK relations. Its protagonist is Kit Fournier, the Central Intelligence Agency station chief at the Embassy of the United States, London. It was the first book in what was originally intended to be a trilogy of spy novels, but later had a fourth book added to it with the publication of The Whitehall Mandarin. The book introduces characters who would go on to play a larger role in Wilson's later novels, including William Catesby [no sign of this character in the Kindle version of The Envoy], a native of a Suffolk fishing village who fits in poorly with either his old neighbours or his government colleagues, and his boss Henry Bone. A running joke in the series describes how Catesby's alleged ancestor Robert Catesby planned the Gunpowder Plot of 1605.

The Darkling Spy

In Wilson's 2011 novel The Darkling Spy, the year is 1956, and Catesby is serving under official cover at the British Embassy in Bonn. Kit Fournier from The Envoy appears again, but in this book he has fallen in love with an English woman who serves as a spy for Moscow, and is considering defection. Publishers Weekly compared Catesby to the John le Carré character George Smiley, and stated that he "will delight those readers looking for less blood and more intelligence in their spy thrillers".

The Midnight Swimmer

The Midnight Swimmer, published in 2012, is set against the build-up to the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.

The Whitehall Mandarin

The Whitehall Mandarin, was published in May 2014. The launch was held at Hatchards bookshop in London. The title is a reference both to bureaucrats and to China, and the question of how China was able to develop thermonuclear weapons so quickly plays a role in the novel. Paul French reviewed it favourably in The Los Angeles Review of Books, stating that "Finally Edward Wilson is garnering the praise and readers in England he's long deserved, but it is to be hoped that America can discover him too". Denis MacShane expressed similar sentiments in his review in Tribune magazine.

A Very British Ending

A Very British Ending is published on 14 April 2016. It takes Catesby's story into the 1970s.