Humphrey Hawksley

Education

Hawksley was educated at the Junior and Senior schools of St. Lawrence College, an independent school for boys (now co-educational), in the coastal seaside town of Ramsgate in Kent, in south east England.

Life and career

After school, Hawksley joined the Merchant Navy, and sailed across the world. He joined the BBC in the early 1980s.

In 1986, Hawksley was expelled from Sri Lanka where he had reported on a number of government atrocities in its conflict with Tamil separatists. In 1987 he covered violence in the Philippines and received death threats. In 1989 after the killings in Tiananmen Square he went to Hong Kong and reported on social stresses due to the country’s imminent transfer to Chinese rule. He was simultaneously a reporter for the whole of Asia. He later covered this transfer live in Beijing. In 1994, he opened the BBC’s first television bureau in China. Humphrey Hawksley reported on fighting in The Balkans, Iraq and Timor Humphrey Hawksley has also reported on slavery in cocoa production.

Hawksley has written extensively in Newspapers including The Guardian and The Times.

Hawksley is also the author of best-selling political novels aimed at raising key strategic issues in the far east before a broader audience. These include Dragon Fire, Ceremony of Innocence, Absolute Measures, Red Spirit and co-author with Simon Holberton of Dragon Strike. His latest books are The Third World War, The History Book and "Democracy Kills: What's So Good About Having the Vote?".

The History Book was re-released as Security Breach on 28 July 2008. On his blog, Humphrey Hawksley explains the renaming thus:

The History Book this week becomes Security Breach, re-named and re-packaged to take account of the rapidly-changing real-life events.