Frances Stonor Saunders

Early life

Frances Stonor Saunders is the daughter of Julia Camoys Stonor and Donald Robin Slomnicki Saunders. Her father, who died in 1997, was a Jewish refugee from Bucharest, Romania, born to a British national with Polish and Russian ancestry. Jews named Slomnicki died in the Belzec extermination camp; the fate of two great-aunts Saunders was unable to determine. Her parents divorced when Saunders was eight.

Saunders attended St Mary's School Ascot, where she was head girl.

Career

A few years after graduating (in 1987) with a first-class honours degree in English from University of Oxford (having studied at St Anne's College), Saunders embarked on a career as a television film-maker. Hidden Hands: A Different History of Modernism, made for Channel 4 in 1995, discussed the connection between American art critics and Abstract Expressionist painters with the CIA. Who Paid the Piper?: CIA and the Cultural Cold War (1999) (in the USA: The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters), her first book, was developed from her work on the documentary, concentrating on the history of the covertly CIA-funded Congress for Cultural Freedom. The book won the Royal Historical Society's William Gladstone Memorial Prize and was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award. It has since been published in fifteen languages. Saunders' other works reflect her academic background as a medievalist.

In 2005, after some years as the arts editor and associate editor of the New Statesman, Saunders resigned in protest over the sacking of Peter Wilby, the then-editor. In 2004 and 2005 for Radio 3, she presented Meetings of Minds, two three-part series on the meetings of intellectuals at significant points in history. She is also a regular contributor to Radio 3's Nightwaves and other radio programmes.

Her second book, Hawkwood: Diabolical Englishman (in the US: The Devil's Broker), recounts the life and career of John Hawkwood, a condottiere of the 14th century. English-born, Hawkwood (1320–1394) made a notorious career as a participant in the confused and treacherous power politics of the Papacy, France, and Italy. The Woman Who Shot Mussolini (2010) is a biography of Violet Gibson, the Anglo-Irish aristocrat who shot Benito Mussolini in 1926, wounding him slightly.

Of Saunders' book, The Suitcase: Six Attempts to Cross a Border, Elisa Segrave wrote in The Spectator: "This is a complex, occasionally frustrating book with fascinating historical nuggets." The author "certainly brings home the anguish of war. She also examines memory, its importance and its unpredictability." James McConnachie wrote in The Sunday Times: "As for that suitcase, it would be unfair to say more. I’ll only warn that the payoff isn’t a Hollywood explosion. It is more an arthouse twist — but one that, like this book, will haunt you." Saunders was awarded the PEN Ackerley Prize for outstanding memoir and autobiography for The Suitcase: Six Attempts to Cross a Border in July 2022.

Saunders was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2018. She lives in London.

Works

Articles

• "Modern art was CIA 'weapon'." The Independent (Jun. 14, 2013) (orig. 22 Oct. 1995).
• "The Writer and the Valet." London Review of Books, vol. 36, no. 18 (Sep. 25, 2014).
• "Stuck on the Flypaper: Frances Stonor Saunders on MI5 and the Hobsbawm File." London Review of Books, vol. 37, no. 7 (Apr. 9, 2015).
• "Where on Earth Are You?" London Review of Books, vol. 38, no. 5 (Mar. 3, 2016).
• "The Suitcase." London Review of Books, vol. 42, no. 15 (Jul. 30, 2020).
• "The Suitcase: Part Two." London Review of Books, vol. 42, no. 16 (Aug. 3, 2020).
• "The Suitcase: Part Three." London Review of Books, vol. 42, no. 17 (Sep. 10, 2020).

Books

• Who Paid the Piper?: CIA and the Cultural Cold War. London: Granta (1999). .
  • U.S. ed.: The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters. New York: The New Press (2000). .
• Hawkwood: Diabolical Englishman. London: Faber and Faber (2004). .
  • U.S. ed.: The Devil's Broker: Seeking Gold, God, and Glory in Fourteenth-Century Italy. New York: Fourth Estate (2005). .
• The Woman Who Shot Mussolini. London: Faber and Faber (2010). .

Documentaries

• Hidden Hands: A Hidden History of Modernism. London: Channel 4 (1995). 4 episodes.
  • Incl. 32-page booklet. .

References

References

1. McConnachie, James. (30 May 2021). "The Suitcase by Frances Stonor Saunders, review — uncovering family secrets". The Sunday Times.
2. Moorehead, Caroline. (22 October 2021). "Saturated sites".
3. Segrave, Elisa. (31 July 2021). "On the run from the Nazis: a Polish family's protracted ordeal".
4. (24 May 2015). "What happens to head girls?". The Observer.
5. [http://www.shadowcompanythemovie.com/shadow_company_bios.pdf "Frances Stonor Saunders"] (biography). ''Shadow Company.''
6. "Distinguished alumnae".
7. Saunders, Frances Stonor. (14 June 2013). "Modern Art was CIA 'Weapon'". [[The Independent]].
8. [http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/sundayfeature/pip/fbkmj/ "Meetings of Minds"], BBC Radio 3 page for first episode
9. [http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/meetingsofminds/pip/4877k/ "Meetings of Minds"], BBC Radio 3 page for first episode of second run
10. [[Lucy Hughes-Hallett. Hughes-Hallett, Lucy]]. [https://archive.today/20210117003122/https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/feb/27/woman-shot-mussolini-stonor-saunders "The Woman Who Shot Mussolini by Frances Stonor Saunders"]. ''[[The Guardian]]'', February 27, 2010. Archived from [https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/feb/27/woman-shot-mussolini-stonor-saunders the original.]
11. Brown, Lauren. (15 July 2022). "PEN Ackerley Prize goes to Stoner Saunders' 'riveting' memoir of borders and belonging".
12. [https://archive.today/20210117002047/https://rsliterature.org/fellow/frances-stonor-saunders/ "Frances Stonor Saunders."] ''[[Royal Society of Literature]]''. Archived from [https://rsliterature.org/fellow/frances-stonor-saunders/ the original.] Accessed January 16, 2020.
13. [[Walter Laqueur. Laqueur, Walter]]. [https://archive.today/20210116232104/https://nationalinterest.org/bookreview/you-had-to-be-there-977 "You Had to be There." Review of ''Who Paid the Piper?: CIA and the Cultural Cold War'' by Frances Stonor Saunders.] ''[[The National Interest]]'', no. 58, 99 (2000), pp. 133-135. Archived from [https://nationalinterest.org/bookreview/you-had-to-be-there-977 the original.]
14. 10.1023/A:1007648425606.