Caroline Moorehead
{{Short description|British activist and journalist}}
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{{Infobox writer
| name = Caroline Moorehead
| honorific_suffix = {{post-nominals|country=UK|size=100%|OBE|FRSL}}
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| birth_name = Caroline Mary Moorehead
| birth_date = {{Birth date and age|df=yes|1944|10|28}}
| birth_place = London
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| occupation = {{flatlist|
- Biographer
- historian
- human rights journalist
- literary critic
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| nationality = British
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| alma_mater = University of London
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| subject = Human rights
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| relatives = Alan Moorehead (father)
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Caroline Mary Moorehead {{post-nominals|country=UK|OBE|FRSL}} (born 28 October 1944) is a human rights journalist and biographer.Europa Publications, International Who's Who of Authors and Writers 2004 (Psychology Press, 2003: {{ISBN|1-85743-179-0}}), p. 393.
Early life
Born in London, Moorehead is the daughter of Australian war correspondent Alan Moorehead and his English wife Lucy Milner.{{cite news|last1=von Neuschatz|first1=Delia|title=Interview with Caroline Moorehead, OBE, FRSL|url=http://www.newyorksocialdiary.com/social-history/2012/interview-with-caroline-moorehead-obe-frsl|accessdate=2 October 2015|work=New York Social Diary|date=22 May 2012|archive-date=3 October 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151003020711/http://www.newyorksocialdiary.com/social-history/2012/interview-with-caroline-moorehead-obe-frsl|url-status=live}} She received a BA from the University of London in 1965.International Who's Who of Authors and Writers 2004, p. 393.
Writing
Moorehead has written seven biographies, of Bertrand Russell, Heinrich Schliemann, Freya Stark, Iris Origo, Martha Gellhorn, Sidney Bernstein, and Henriette-Lucy, Marquise de La Tour du Pin Gouvernet, the daughter in law of Jean-Frédéric de la Tour du Pin, who experienced the French Revolution and left a rich collection of letters as well as a memoir that cover the decades from the fall of the Ancien Régime up to the rise of Napoleon III.
Moorehead has also written many non-fiction pieces centered on human rights including a history of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Dunant's Dream, based on previously unseen archives in Geneva, Troublesome People, a book on pacifists, and a work on terrorism, Hostages to Fortune. A work in this category on refugees in the modern world, Human Cargo, was published in 2004. Moorehead has also published A Train in Winter, a book which focuses on 230 French women of the Resistance who were sent to Auschwitz, on Convoi des 31000, and of whom only forty-nine survived.{{cite news | url=http://www.boston.com/ae/books/articles/2009/06/28/an_interview_with_caroline_moorehead_author_of_8216dancing_to_the_precipice8217 | work=The Boston Globe | title=Eyewitness to the Terror and Napoleon | first=Anna | last=Mundow | date=28 June 2009 | access-date=28 July 2010 | archive-date=1 July 2009 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090701095421/http://www.boston.com/ae/books/articles/2009/06/28/an_interview_with_caroline_moorehead_author_of_8216dancing_to_the_precipice8217/? | url-status=live }} Her book Village of Secrets (2014) is on a similar theme, describing a story where a wartime French village helped 3,000 Jews to safety.
Moorehead has written many book reviews for assorted papers and reviews, including Literary Review, The Times Literary Supplement, Daily Telegraph, Independent, Spectator, and New York Review of Books. She specialized in human rights as a journalist, contributing a column first to The Times and then the Independent, and co-producing and writing a series of programs on human rights for BBC Television.
Appointments
She is a trustee and director of Index on Censorship and a governor of the British Institute of Human Rights. She has served on the committees of the Royal Society of Literature, of which she is a Fellow; the Society of Authors; English PEN; and the London Library. She also helped start a legal advice centre for asylum seekers from the Horn of Africa in Cairo, where she helps run a number of educational projects.
Honours
She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1993.{{cite web |url=http://www.rslit.org/content/fellows/M |title=Royal Society of Literature All Fellows |publisher=Royal Society of Literature |accessdate=10 August 2010 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20100406025433/http://www.rslit.org/content/fellows/M |archivedate=6 April 2010 }} She was appointed an OBE in 2005 for services to literature.{{cite web|url = http://www.camden.gov.uk/ccm/content/press/2005/press-releases-october-2005/mayor-welcomes-camdens-honoured-citizens.en|title = Mayor welcomes Camden's honoured citizens|publisher = Borough of Camden|accessdate = 10 August 2010|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20110611221211/http://www.camden.gov.uk/ccm/content/press/2005/press-releases-october-2005/mayor-welcomes-camdens-honoured-citizens.en|archive-date = 11 June 2011|url-status = dead}}
Selected publications
- Hostages to Fortune: A Study of Kidnapping in the World Today. New York: Atheneum, 1980. {{ISBN|0689109997}}
- Sidney Bernstein: A Biography. London: J. Cape, 1984. {{ISBN|0224019341}}
- Freya Stark. New York, N.Y., U.S.A.: Viking, 1986. {{ISBN|0670806757}}
- Troublesome People: Enemies of War: 1916-1986. London: Hamilton, 1987. {{ISBN|0241121051}}
- Betrayal: A Report on Violence Toward Children in Today's World. New York: Doubleday, 1990. {{ISBN|0385410972}}
- Bertrand Russell: A Life. New York: Viking, 1992. {{ISBN|067085008X}}
- Lost and Found: The 9,000 Treasures of Troy : Heinrich Schliemann and the Gold That Got Away. New York: Viking, 1996. {{ISBN|0670856797}}
- Dunant's Dream: War, Switzerland, and the History of the Red Cross. New York: Carroll & Graf Pub, 1999. {{ISBN|0786706090}}
- Iris Origo: Marchesa of Val D'Orcia. Boston: David R. Godine, 2002. {{ISBN|1567921833}}
- Gellhorn: A Twentieth-Century Life. New York: H. Holt, 2003. {{ISBN|0805065539}}
- Human Cargo: A Journey Among Refugees. New York: H. Holt, 2005. {{ISBN|0805074430}}
- Dancing to the Precipice: The Life of Lucie De La Tour Du Pin, Eyewitness to an Era. New York: HarperCollins, 2009. {{ISBN|9780061684418}}
- A Train in Winter: An Extraordinary Story of Women, Friendship, and Resistance in Occupied France. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2011. {{ISBN|9780061650703}}
- Village of Secrets: Defying the Nazis in Vichy France. Harper, 2014. {{ISBN|9780062202475}}
- A Bold and Dangerous Family: The Remarkable Story of An Italian Mother, Her Two Sons, and Their Fight Against Fascism. Harper, 2017 {{ISBN|9780062308320}}
- {{cite book|title=A House in the Mountains: The Women Who Liberated Italy from Fascism|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ExqUDwAAQBAJ|date=28 January 2020|publisher=Harper|isbn=978-0-06-268638-1}}
References
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External links
- http://bookcriticscircle.blogspot.com "Critical Mass"{{subscription required|date=April 2019}}
- http://www.rlf.org.uk "Current Fellows: Caroline Moorehead"
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20051108100654/http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/ The Times] "Current affairs: Human Cargo by Caroline Moorehead"
- {{IMDb name|062441}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Moorehead, Caroline}}
Category:British human rights activists
Category:British women human rights activists
Category:Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature
Category:Officers of the Order of the British Empire
Category:Alumni of the University of London