Erik Durschmied
Literary Agent: Luigi Bonomi
Erik Durschmied’s career began with a scoop. In 1958, as a young TV cameraman, he was the first to seek out an unknown rebel in the Cuban mountains, Fidel Castro, and made a documentary shown worldwide. Thirty years later, Castro invited him back.
Based on his success, the BBC asked him to join their new TV doc series, Panorama. He remained with the BBC for twelve years (1960-1972), covering conflicts of that period. Later on he moved to CBS as a special war correspondent. He spent ten years in Vietnam (Oskar-nominated “The Mills of God”, 1965, “Hill 943”, 1967), discovered the “killing fields of Cambodia”(1979), covered the “hostage crisis” in Tehran (1981), and the Iraq-Iran slaughter based in Baghdad (1982-84). Chou Enlai allowed him a first candid glimpse of China (“The Seven Hundred Million”, 1964), the Soviets took him into Afghanistan (1983), Kim Il Sung into North Korea (“A Kingdom in isolation”, 1985). Durschmied’s descriptive, sometimes horrid, sometimes amusing anecdotes are all encompassing. His observations of the many mistakes committed by political leaders and generals gave him ample ammunition for a lecture series at universities, banquets, and military colleges, and for a series of books on battle errors.
He is the author of a series of popular non-fiction bestsellers, concentrating on “how chance and stupidity have changed history”. His fourteen books are translated into 18 languages, published in 28 countries. English titles: “Don’t shoot the Yanqui”(1990), “The Hinge Factor”(1998), “ The Weather Factor”(1999), “The Blood of Revolution”(2000), “Whisper of a Blade”(2000), “From Armageddon to the Fall of Rome”(2001), “The Hinges of Battles”(2002), “Unsung Heroes”(2003), “The Whores of the Devil”(2004), ” The China Factor”(2005), “The Eureka Factor”(2006).
The Author, a Canadian, is married, lives in Paris and the South of France. His name is inscribed in the Museum of Film and Television. For his literary work he was awarded the honorary Austrian citizenship.