罗伯特·哈里斯

罗伯特·哈里斯，CBE（英语：Robert Harris，1957年3月7日—），当代英国大众小说家。

生于诺丁汉，剑桥大学塞尔文学院毕业后任记者，先后服务于BBC、星期日泰晤士报、每日电讯报，2003年曾获英国新闻奖（British Press Awards）。现专事小说创作。他的小说经常改编成电视剧或电影。

哈里斯妻子的哥哥是英国作家尼克·宏比。

作品

长篇小说

《祖国》（Fatherland，1992年），1994年由HBO改编为电视电影。

《拦截密码战》（Enigma，1995年）

《大间谍》（Archangel，1998年）

《庞贝》（Pompeii，2003年）

《最高权力》（Imperium，2006年），西塞罗三部曲第一卷

《影子写手》（The Ghost，2007年）

《权谋之业》（2009年），西塞罗三部曲第二卷

《The Fear Index》（2011年）

《军官与间谍》（2013年）

《独裁者》（2015年），西塞罗三部曲第三卷

《秘密会议》（2016年）

《慕尼黑》（2017年）

短篇小说

《PMQ》，收录于《Speaking with the Angel》（2000）

非小说

《A Higher Form of Killing: The Secret Story of Gas and Germ Warfare》（1982），与杰里米·帕克斯曼合著

《Gotcha! The Government, the Media and the Falklands Crisis》（1983）

《Selling Hitler: The Story of the Hitler Diaries》（1986）

《Good and Faithful Servant: The Unauthorized Biography of Bernard Ingham》（1990）

Robert Dennis Harris CBE (born 7 March 1957) is a British novelist and former journalist. Although he began his career in journalism and non-fiction, he is best known for his works of historical fiction. Beginning with the best-seller Fatherland, Harris focused on events surrounding the Second World War, followed by works set in ancient Rome. His later works are varied in settings but are mostly set after 1870.

Several of Harris's novels have been adapted into films, including The Ghost Writer (2010) and An Officer and a Spy (2019), for which he co-wrote the screenplays with director Roman Polanski, and Conclave (2024).

Early life and education

Robert Harris spent his childhood in a small rented house on a Nottingham council estate. His ambition to become a writer arose at an early age, from visits to the local printing plant where his father worked. Harris went to Belvoir High School in Bottesford, Leicestershire, and then King Edward VII School, Melton Mowbray, where a hall was later named after him. There he wrote plays and edited the school magazine. He lived at 17 Fleming Avenue.

Harris read English literature at Selwyn College, Cambridge, where he was elected president of the Cambridge Union and editor of Varsity, the oldest student newspaper at Cambridge University.

Career

Early career

After leaving Cambridge, Harris joined the BBC and worked on news and current affairs programmes such as Panorama and Newsnight. In 1987, at the age of 30, he became political editor of The Observer. He later wrote regular columns for The Sunday Times and The Daily Telegraph.

Non-fiction (1982–1990)

Harris co-wrote his first book, A Higher Form of Killing (1982), with fellow BBC journalist Jeremy Paxman: this was a study of chemical and biological warfare. Other non-fiction works followed: Gotcha! The Government, the Media and the Falklands Crisis (1983) covering the Falklands War; The Making of Neil Kinnock (1984), a profile of Kinnock just after he became leader of the Opposition; Selling Hitler (1986), an investigation of the Hitler Diaries scandal; and Good and Faithful Servant (1990), a study of Bernard Ingham, press secretary to Margaret Thatcher while she was prime minister.

Fatherland (1992)

Harris's bestselling first novel, the alternative-history Fatherland (1992), has as its setting a world where Nazi Germany won the Second World War. Publication enabled Harris to become a full-time novelist. It was adapted as a television film by HBO in 1994.

Harris has stated that the proceeds from the book enabled him to buy a former vicarage in Berkshire that he jokingly dubbed "the house that Hitler built", where he still lives.

Enigma (1995)

His second novel, Enigma, portrayed the breaking of the German Enigma cipher during the Second World War at Cambridge University and Bletchley Park. It was adapted as a film by writer Tom Stoppard, starring Dougray Scott and Kate Winslet, in 2001.

Archangel (1998)

Archangel was another international best seller. It follows a British historian in contemporary Russia as he hunts for a secret notebook, believed to be Stalin's diary. It was adapted as a television film by the BBC, starring Daniel Craig, in 2005.

Pompeii (2003)

In 2003 Harris turned his attention to ancient Rome with Pompeii. The novel is about a Roman aqueduct engineer, working near the city of Pompeii just before the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 CE. As the aqueducts begin to malfunction, he investigates and realises the volcano is shifting the ground beneath and is near eruption. Meanwhile, he falls in love with the young daughter of a powerful local businessman who was illicitly dealing with his predecessor to divert municipal water for his own uses, and will do anything to keep that deal going.

Imperium (2006)

In 2006, Harris followed up on Pompeii with another Roman-era work, Imperium, the first novel in a trilogy centred on the life of the great Roman orator and lawyer Marcus Tullius Cicero.