Profile
Francis Wheen
Francis Wheen is a prolific freelance journalist and broadcaster, and has worked for the New Statesman, Independent, Mirror, Gay News, Today, New Socialist and Tatler. Having presented News-Stand on BBC Radio 4 for a number of years, Francis has appeared often on ITV’s What the Papers Say and more recently on BBC2’s Have I Got News For You. He is now the writer of Wheen’s World a regular column appearing in the Guardian – for which he was voted Columnist of the Year.His previous books include The Sixties (1982), Television (1985), The Battle for London (1985), Tom Driberg (1990) which was shortlisted for the Whitbread Biography Award, and the bestselling How Mumbo Jumbo Conquered the World (2004). Karl Marx was published by Fourth Estate in 2000 and was shortlisted for numerous awards including the WH Smith Literary Award; the Samuel Johnson Prize; the Orwell Prize; the Silver Pen Award; and the Marsh Award.Francis Wheen lives in Essex.
KARL MARX
A major biography of the man who, more than any other, made the twentieth century. Written by an author of great repute.
Publication date: UK 7th May 2010
STRANGE DAYS INDEED: The Golden Age of Paranoia
‘If the 1960s were a wild weekend and the 1980s a hectic day at the office, the 1970s were a long Sunday evening in winter, with cold leftovers for supper and a power cut expected at any moment.’ A jaw-droppingly brilliant account of how the seventies was defined by mass paranoia told with Francis Wheen’s wonderfully acute sense of the absurd.
Publication date: UK 15th Apr 2010
STRANGE DAYS INDEED: The Golden Age of Paranoia
Strange Days Indeed, by Francis Wheen.
Publication date: UK 3rd Sep 2009
HOW MUMBO-JUMBO CONQUERED THE WORLD: A Short History of Modern Delusions
An entertaining, impassioned polemic on the retreat of reason in the late 20th century. An intellectual call to arms, Francis Wheen’s Sunday Times bestseller is one of 2004’s most talked about books.
Publication date: UK 4th Oct 2004
THE SOUL OF INDISCRETION: Tom Driberg, poet, philanderer, legislator and outlaw – His Life and Indiscretions
Francis Wheen’s brilliantly comic portrait of one of the 20th-century’s great characters, Tom Driberg: wit, parliamentarian, serial cottager, alleged communist spy and friend to the Kray brothers.
Publication date: UK 2nd Apr 2001