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Martin Sixsmith

Born

in Warrington, The United Kingdom

September 24, 1954

Genre

Nonfiction, Fiction

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George Martin Sixsmith, British author and journalist.
Sixsmith joined the BBC in 1980 where he worked as a foreign correspondent, most notably reporting from Moscow during the end of the Cold War. He also reported from Poland during the Solidarity uprising and was the BBC's Washington correspondent during the election and first presidency of Bill Clinton. He was based in Russia for five years, the US for four, Brussels for four and Poland for three.

Sixsmith left the BBC in 1997 to work for the newly elected government of Tony Blair. He became Director of Communications (a civil service post), working first with Harriet Harman and Frank Field, then with Alistair Darling. His next position was as a Director of GEC plc, where he oversaw the re George Martin Sixsmith, British author and journalist.
Sixsmith joined the BBC in 1980 where he worked as a foreign correspondent, most notably reporting from Moscow during the end of the Cold War. He also reported from Poland during the Solidarity uprising and was the BBC's Washington correspondent during the election and first presidency of Bill Clinton. He was based in Russia for five years, the US for four, Brussels for four and Poland for three.

Sixsmith left the BBC in 1997 to work for the newly elected government of Tony Blair. He became Director of Communications (a civil service post), working first with Harriet Harman and Frank Field, then with Alistair Darling. His next position was as a Director of GEC plc, where he oversaw the rebranding of the company as Marconi plc.

In December 2001, he returned to the Civil Service to join the Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions as Director of Communications in time to become embroiled in the second act of the scandal over Jo Moore. Moore was special adviser to the transport secretary Stephen Byers and had been the subject of much public condemnation for suggesting that a controversial announcement should be "buried" during the media coverage of the September 11, 2001 attacks.[1]

Sixsmith incurred the displeasure of Downing Street when his email advising Byers and Moore not to bury more bad news was leaked to the press. Number Ten attempted to "resign him", but had later to issue an apology and pay him compensation. Sixsmith was widely expected to write a memoir or autobiography in the wake of his civil service departure, but was gagged by the government[citation needed] Instead, he produced a novel about near-future politics called Spin, published in 2004.

His second novel, I Heard Lenin Laugh, was published in 2005. In 2006 he was commissioned by BBC Radio 4 to present a series of programmes on Russian poetry, literature and art.

In 2007 he wrote The Litvinenko File, an examination of the feud between the Kremlin and Russia's émigré oligarchs.

In 2008 Sixsmith worked on two BBC documentaries exploring the legacy of the KGB in today's Russia and also presented a BBC documentary, The Snowy Streets of St. Petersburg, about artists and writers who fled the former Eastern bloc.

In 2009 he wrote The Lost Child of Philomena Lee, about the forcible separation of a mother and child by the nuns of an Irish convent during the 1950s, and the subsequent attempts of the mother and child to contact one another.[2] The book was adapted into the film Philomena, directed by Stephen Frears, starring Dame Judi Dench and Steve Coogan (as Sixsmith), and written by Coogan and Jeff Pope; it premiered at the Venice Film Festival and was released in the UK on November 1 2013.

In February 2010 Sixsmith wrote Putin's Oil, about Russia's energy wars and their consequences for Moscow and the world.

He worked as an adviser to the BBC political sitcom The Thick of It, and the Oscar-nominated film, In the Loop.

In 2011, he presented Russia: The Wild East, a 50-part history of Russia for BBC Radio 4, the last episode of which was broadcast on 12 August.[3] His book Russia, a 1,000 Year Chronicle of the Wild East was published by Random House.

In 2014 Sixsmith will present a 25 part programme about the history of psychology and psychiatry for the BBC radio.
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Combine Editions
Martin Sixsmith’s books

Average rating: 3.77 · 20,476 ratings · 2,320 reviews · 28 distinct works • Similar authors

	The Lost Child of Philomena Lee: A Mother, Her Son and A Fifty-Year Search 3.72 avg rating — 17,665 ratings — published 2009 — 67 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Russia: A 1000-Year Chronicle of the Wild East 4.17 avg rating — 1,601 ratings — published 2011 — 24 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Ayesha's Gift: A daughter's search for the truth about her father 3.63 avg rating — 279 ratings — 7 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The War of Nerves: Inside the Cold War Mind 4.19 avg rating — 204 ratings — published 2021 — 6 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Litvinenko File: The True Story of a Death Foretold 3.91 avg rating — 183 ratings — 17 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Putin and the Return of History: How the Kremlin Rekindled the Cold War by Martin Sixsmith, Daniel Sixsmith (Primary Contributor) 4.15 avg rating — 112 ratings — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Putin's Oil: The Yukos Affair and the Struggle for Russia 3.97 avg rating — 91 ratings — published 2010 — 11 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Russia: The Wild East: A History, Part Two: The Rise and Fall of the Soviets by Martin Sixsmith (Author and Narrator), David Warner (Narrator), Peter Dickinson (Narrator) 4.15 avg rating — 67 ratings — published 2011 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Russia: The Wild East: A History, Part One: From Rulers to Revolutions by Martin Sixsmith (Author and Narrator), David Warner (Narrator), Peter Dickson (Narrator) 3.91 avg rating — 58 ratings — 5 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	An Unquiet Heart 3.87 avg rating — 52 ratings — 6 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

More books by Martin Sixsmith…

Quotes by Martin Sixsmith (?)

“Death changes things. It changes how we think about people; it changes the living and it changes the dead.”
― Martin Sixsmith, Philomena: A Mother, Her Son and A Fifty-Year Search

7 likes

“You'll remain, Mike. You'll remain with me. I'll always miss you, and I'll always love you.”
― Martin Sixsmith

tags: love

4 likes

“Hess”
― Martin Sixsmith, Philomena: A Mother, Her Son and A Fifty-Year Search

3 likes

See all Martin Sixsmith's quotes »

Polls

Time to vote on our first Nonfiction book of 2021...

This book will be open to read for the months of January and February 2021.

This poll will remain open until close of day on December 12th.

Be sure to get your vote in...

A Bookshop in Berlin

by Françoise Frenkel

11 votes, 27.5%

Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family

by Robert Kolker

9 votes, 22.5%

Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

by Isabel Wilkerson

6 votes, 15.0%

Charlatan: America's Most Dangerous Huckster, the Man Who Pursued Him, and the Age of Flimflam

by Pope Brock

4 votes, 10.0%

Philomena: A Mother, Her Son, and a Fifty-Year Search

by Martin Sixsmith

3 votes, 7.5%

Emergency Admissions: Memoirs of an Ambulance Driver

by Kit Wharton

3 votes, 7.5%

Sigh, Gone: A Misfit's Memoir of Great Books, Punk Rock, and the Fight to Fit In

by Phuc Tran

2 votes, 5.0%

Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy: Four Women Undercover in the Civil War

by Karen Abbott

1 vote, 2.5%

Lost in Shangri-la: A True Story of Survival, Adventure, and the Most Incredible Rescue Mission of World War II

by Mitchell Zuckoff

1 vote, 2.5%

Racing to Justice: Transforming Our Conceptions of Self and Other to Build an Inclusive Society

by John A. Powell

0 votes, 0.0%

40 total votes

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