Simon Parkin

Simon Parkin is a British author and journalist for magazines, newspapers and websites. He is contributing writer for the New Yorker, a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, an Orwell Prize finalist, and winner of The Wingate Literary Prize.

During the past decade Parkin has contributed to The New York Times, Harper's, the Guardian, New Statesmen, BBC and a variety of other publications

His work has been featured in 'The Best American Nonrequired Reading'. He is a finalist in the Foreign Press Association Media Awards, the Orwell Prize and Royal Society Book Prizes, and winner of the Wingate Prize.

Parkin is the author of several books, including 'A Game of Birds and Wolves', a work of narrative non-fiction set during the Second World War. The book was shortlisted for the Mountbatten Prize, and described by the New Yorker as "vivid and engaging."

Parkin’s second major book, ‘The Island of Extraordinary Captives’, tells the story of Hutchinson Camp (www.hutchinsoncamp.com), an internment prison established on the Isle of Man in July 1940. It was described by Sir Max Hastings in The Sunday Times as "a powerful book, vivid and moving," and won the 2023 Wingate Literary Prize.

The Forbidden Garden of Leningrad, Parkin’s third book, tells the story of the botanists who protected the world’s largest seed bank during the 872-day siege of the city. It was a finalist in the Orwell Prize and the Royal Society Book Prize, and an Economist Book of the Year.

His next book, Trial of the Space Invaders, uncovers a years-long legal battle in the 1980s to establish who invented video games. The outcome of the trial, which has, until now been kept secret for more than thirty years, profoundly shaped the industry. It will be published in January 2027.

Parkin grew up in South London, graduated from King’s College, and now lives in West Sussex.