Christopher de Bellaigue

Christopher de Bellaigue was born in 1971 in London to an Anglo-French family, and grew up in the UK.

Between 1995 and 2007 he lived in New Delhi, Ankara and Tehran, writing for the The Economist, the The New York Review of Books, Harper's and many other publications, before taking up a visiting fellowship at St Antony’s College, Oxford.

He is a frequent broadcaster for the BBC and a contributor to the The Guardian. His award-winning books include "In the Rose Garden of the Martyrs: a Memoir of Iran," "Rebel Land: Among Turkey's Forgotten Peoples," and "Patriot of Persia: Muhammad Mossadegh and a Tragic-Anglo-American Coup."

He is currently working on a book about the transformation of Middle Eastern civilization by modern ideas–an Islamic "Enlightenment."