David Baird, the author of Don’t Miss The Fiesta! and Between Two Fires, has an intimate knowledge of southern Spain and especially the area where the events described in his books take place as he has lived in the region for many years. He is an experienced foreign correspondent, editor and photographer. He has twice won Spain’s national travel-writing prize for foreign writers and journalists.
Before basing himself in Spain, he worked as reporter and editor on newspapers and magazines around the world, including The Times of London, the Daily Express, the Ottawa Citizen and the Far Eastern Economic Review.
His reports on Spain, Portugal and North Africa have appeared in many publications, including Maclean’s Magazine (Toronto), The Economist, Daily Telegraph, International Herald Tribune, Boston Globe, Sydney Morning Herald and South China Morning Post.
His books include:
Sunny Side Up – the 21st century hits a Spanish village
Inside Andalusia
Between Two Fires – Guerrilla war in the Spanish sierras
East of Malaga – Essential guide to the Axarquía and Costa Tropical
Versatile Guide to Spain
Back Roads of Southern Spain
Don’t Miss the Fiesta!
The Incredible Gulf (travel in the Australian Outback)
January 26, 2008 at 8:46 pm |
Now you’re getting somewhere! Perhaps a litle more about your research, the remote places on goat tracks, the ancient gnarled men (e owen EXCEPTED), the secrets hidden for generations…
January 27, 2008 at 6:27 pm |
I met David Baird in Hong kong when he was a reporter with the South China Morning Post almost 30 years ago.
Not only he is a prolific writer, he is also a gentleman with a very dry sense of humour, which is pleasantly reflected in his very light-hearted book about the Pueblo, Sunny Side Up.
I’m confident that his new book about the guerrilla will be another success, a topic of conversation among interlectuals and scholars who are interested in the history of Spain.
David has spent five long years in his research for this book. I wouldn’t be surprised that he’ll be awarded another medal from the Spanish Government. I look forward to reading it.
February 12, 2008 at 6:53 am |
Like Bill Yim, I too have not read David Baird’s latest book. But, having had the pleasure of editing Baird’s writings for the Far Eastern Economic Review in the late 1960s and early 1970s, I am certain Between Two Fires will be a thoroughly absorbing read. Baird has always shown a flair for getting to the guts of an issue. I doubt he would have gone to press on Fires if he had not done so yet again.
Sorry to remind you Bill, but it’s 40 years, not “almost 30″, since you knew David in HK. It’s pleasing to know, Bill, that you are still around. So many of my old friends and acquaintances from my HK years are no longer able to communicate on the mortal plane. I’ve still got a sketch that you produced, I think, at the bar of the Dateline behind the old SCMP building. I can’t believe I ever looked like that.
Do you remember that day in, I think, 1967, when David Wong (sadly now “the late”), sauntered down the stairs into the Dateline late one afternoon, announced that the PLA were shooting HK police on the border at Lowu, and adding, coolly, “The usual, Ah Fai” before taking a seat at the bar?
Here’s to many more such fond memories.
Bob Hawkins
February 17, 2008 at 9:19 pm |
I know the author has been working on this for years and can’t wait to read it. Sunny Side Up was great – and I have even read The Incredible Gulf (a late 1960s Baird vintage ).
El Bairdo, as he is known to some, is a fine, upstanding Oswestry man and one of Shropshire’s finest exports.