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Jimmy Burns

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born

Madrid, Spain

gender

male

website

http://www.jimmy-burns.com/index.asp

twitter username

Jimmy_Burns

genre

History

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Jimmy Burns was born in Madrid in 1953. His father the late Tom Burns met his mother Mabel Maranon while working in the British embassy in Madrid during the Second World War. Jimmy contributes Spanish language media outlets and publishes his books in Spanish translation as Jimmy Burns Maranon. His childhood was spent straddling cultures -Britain, Castille, and Catalonia. He went to school at a British school in Madrid, then a preparatory school in London before studying for his O and A-levels at the Jesuit Stonyhurst College in Lancashire. He took a BA honours degree in Latin American & Iberian Studies at University College, London and an MA in the politics and government of Latin America at the Institute of La...more From the author's website:

Jimmy Burns was born in Madrid in 1953. His father the late Tom Burns met his mother Mabel Maranon while working in the British embassy in Madrid during the Second World War. Jimmy contributes Spanish language media outlets and publishes his books in Spanish translation as Jimmy Burns Maranon. His childhood was spent straddling cultures -Britain, Castille, and Catalonia. He went to school at a British school in Madrid, then a preparatory school in London before studying for his O and A-levels at the Jesuit Stonyhurst College in Lancashire. He took a BA honours degree in Latin American & Iberian Studies at University College, London and an MA in the politics and government of Latin America at the Institute of Latin American Studies in London and The London School of Economics and Political Science. On leaving university, he spent two years teaching English to foreign students, and travelling, gaining experience as a free-lance journalist writing about Latin America and Spain. His early published work included articles for the Catholic Herald and The Tablet. During the 1970's he was commissioned by the BBC to write the script for an Everyman documentary on the Brazilian Archbishop, Helder Camara. He also worked as a researcher for Yorkshire TV, contributing to a critically acclaimed film presented by Robert Kee on the death of Franco and Spain's transition to democracy.

In 1977 Jimmy joined the Financial Times and was posted to Portugal as Lisbon correspondent, reporting also on Spain. He also became a regular contributor to the London Observer, The Christian Science Monitor, and The Economist, as well as the BBC, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, and Radio Nederlands. From 1980-2 he worked for the Financial Times' international desk based in London before being posted to Buenos Aires, as the newspaper's southern cone correspondent.

He arrived in Buenos Aires in the middle of a military palace coup and three months before the invasion of the Falkland Islands by the Argentine armed forces sparked off a three-month war with Britain. He was the only full-time British foreign correspondent to remain in Argentina prior to, during, and well beyond the conflict, covering the country's transition to democracy, as well as political developments in Chile, Uruguay, and Paraguay. He continued to regularly contribute articles on Latin America to other media outlets in the UK, Europe, and the US.

In mid-1986 he returned to London to work at the Financial Times and prove himself as an author. Advised by his agent Caroline Dawnay, he agreed to be signed up by Liz Calder and Nigel Newton as one of the first authors of the most innovative independent publishing houses to emerge from the 1980's, Bloomsbury, with his book, on Argentina and the Falklands War, The Land that lost its Heroes. It won the 1988 Somerset Maugham Award for non-fiction. He followed this up with Beyond the Silver River: South American encounters, based on a collection of personal diaries he kept while living and travelling in South America. In the mid 1990's he was encouraged by David Reynolds and Penny Phillips, then editors at Bloomsbury to write the first full-length biography of Diego Maradona, and subsequently a history of FC Barcelona and the Catalan people. Together with writers like Nick Hornby, Simon Kuper, and Peter Davies, he was praised by the critics for breaking new boundaries in football writing. In between, he was commissioned by John Murray, another independent publisher at the time, to compile and write Spain: A Literary Companion. In Spain, he was co-author of Dossier Diana a book on the death of Princess Diana published by El Pais/Aguilar. In 2002, he published a revised and updated version of The Land that Lost its Heroes, on the 20th anniversary of the Falklands War, while his earlier books led by The Hand of God: The life of Diego Maradona, the first football book by a foreigner to be published in China, foun(less)

135 posts
Jimmy Burns's Blog

Jimmy Burns isn't a Goodreads Author (yet), but he does have a blog, so here are some recent posts imported from his feed.

Aguirre´s unfortunate intervention

Much as I admire the Madrid regional government´s president Espereranza Aguirre as a person, I cannot agree with her politically when it comes to football.

It is I think unfortunate of her to suggest that Friday´s King´s Cup on Friday should be played behind closed doors if Athletic Bilbao and FC Barcelona fans whistle the Spanish national anthem.

By so doing, she has stirred a hornest´s nest of...

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Published on May 23, 2012 02:27 • 1 view

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Books by Jimmy Burns

Average rating: 3.74 · 179 ratings · 32 reviews · 13 distinct works

	Barca: A People's Passion 3.94 avg rating — 87 ratings — 3 editions	My rating:
	Hand of God: The Life of Diego Maradona, Soccer's Fallen Star 3.88 avg rating — 58 ratings — 6 editions	My rating:
	Papa Spy: Love, Faith, and Betrayal in Wartime Spain 2.84 avg rating — 19 ratings — 2 editions	My rating:
	The Land That Lost Its Heroes: How Argentina Lost the Falklands War 3.80 avg rating — 5 ratings — published 1989 — 3 editions	My rating:
	Beyond the Silver River: South American Encounters 3.00 avg rating — 3 ratings — published 1989 — 2 editions	My rating:
	Papa Spy: A True Story Of Love, Wartime Espionage In Madrid, And The Treachery Of The Cambridge Spies 3.50 avg rating — 2 ratings	My rating:
	When Beckham Went to Spain 2.50 avg rating — 4 ratings — published 2005 — 2 editions	My rating:
	Spain 3.00 avg rating — 1 rating — 2 editions	My rating:
	Land That Lost Its Heroes: How Argentina Lost the Falklands War 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	My rating:
	La Roja 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	My rating: