Philip Marsden also known as Philip Marsden-Smedley (born 11 May 1961, Bristol, England) is an English travel writer and novelist.
Marsden has a degree in anthropology and worked for some years for The Spectator magazine. He became a full-time writer in the late 1980s. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
A review of his work by Guy Mannes-Abbott appeared in The Independent newspaper in November 2007.
He lives in Cornwall with his wife, a writer, and their children.
His books include:
Historical and Travel writingA far country: travels in Ethiopia, Century, 1990 ISBN 0-7126-2566-6The crossing place: a journey among the Armenians, HarperCollins, 1993 ISBN 0-00-215878-7 (Somerset Maugham Award in 1994). This book is being currently translated into Spanish thanks to an Artist Residency granted by the Banff Centre in Alberta, Canada, and the Mexican National Fund for Culture and the Arts.The Bronski house: a return to the Borderlands, HarperCollins, 1995 ISBN 0-00-255630-8 "a story of multi-generational Polish exile involving Zofia Ilinska, friend, neighbour and poet" The spirit-wrestlers: a Russian journey, HarperCollins, 1998 (Thomas Cook Travel Book Award 1999)The chains of heaven: An Ethiopian romance, HarperCollins, 2005 ISBN 0-00-717347-4 The barefoot emperor: an Ethiopian tragedy, HarperPress, 2007 ISBN 0-00-717345-8 (A life of Tewodros II).The Levelling Sea: The Story of a Cornish Haven in the Age of Sail, HarperPress, 2011 ISBN 978-0-00-717453-9Rising Ground: A Search For The Spirit Of Place, Granta, 2014 ISBN 9781847086280NovelsThe Main Cages, Flamingo, 2002 ISBN 0-00-713639-0 - set in Cornwall during the mid-1930s.Spectator anthologiesViews from abroad: the Spectator book of travel writing, edited by Philip Marsden-Smedley and Jeffrey Klinke, London: Grafton, 1988 ISBN 0-586-08896-2Articles of war: the Spectator book of World War II, edited by Fiona Glass and Philip Marsden-Smedley, London: Grafton, 1989 ISBN 0-246-13394-5Britain in the eighties: the Spectator’s view of the Thatcher decade edited by Philip Marsden-Smedley, Grafton, 1989 ISBN 0-246-13395-3
