Patricia Clough

Born in Bury, Lancashire, Patricia Clough graduated in German and French from Bristol University. She was trained on the Bolton Evening News before becoming a foreign correspondent, first for Reuters, then successively for The Times, the Independent and the Sunday Times, writing from Switzerland, Germany, Poland, Hungary, the former Czechoslovakia, Austria and Italy. She covered, among other events, the 1968 student rebellion in Italy, the Baader-Meinhof and Brigate Rosse terrorist movements, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the demise of communism and rebirth of democracy in Central Europe, and the collapse of the post-war political regime and rise of Silvio Berlusconi in Italy. Almost by chance she began writing books for German publishers and has since produced ten, two of which have also appeared in English. She has one daughter and, after commuting between Italy and Morocco for some years, has settled down in Umbria, where she writes and gardens.