Ian Cobain

Ian Cobain was born in Liverpool in 1960. He has been a journalist since the early 1980s, latterly as an investigative reporter with the Guardian and Middle East Eye. His journalism has won him a number of major awards including the Martha Gellhorn Prize, the Paul Foot Award for investigative journalism and several Amnesty International media awards.

He is winner of the Paddy Power Total Politics Award for Debut Political Book of the Year.

IAN’S BOOKS

Anatomy of a Killing: Life and Death on a Divided Island, Granta, 2020; The History Thieves, Portobello Books 2016; Cruel Britannia: A Secret History of Torture, Portobello Books, 2012.

REVIEWERS

"riveting and tragic…a precise, compelling history of the Troubles.”

Roddy Doyle

"One of the most important books on the Troubles that I have ever read."

William Crawly, BBC Belfast

"Cool and careful, utterly devastating."

Irish Times

Latest Book

IAN’S FAVOURITE BOOK

The Faber Book of Reportage ed. John Carey

HOW IAN BECAME KATE’S CLIENT

Kate approached me after she had read some of my journalism. We talked about the UK’s involvement in torture since 9/11, and she persuaded me that there might be a book in it.

KATE ABOUT IAN

Ian’s books are intensely researched, forensically detailed, superbly written, challenging accounts of great importance. Yet when we first met he told me he’d prefer to write a book about growing tomatoes. I’m glad I persuaded him to select recent history as his subject instead.