Correspondent for The Economist Benjamin Cunningham
Benjamin Cunningham is a correspondent for The Economist. He covered Central and Eastern Europe for six years, and now writes about the wider Mediterranean region from Barcelona. In addition he contributes to The Guardian, The Los Angeles Review of Books, Aspen Review, Le Monde Diplomatique and is an opinion columnist for Sme, Slovakia’s main daily newspaper. He is a PhD candidate at the University of Barcelona. Cunningham began his journalism career with newspapers in Michigan (Pontiac, Saginaw, Grand Rapids and Detroit). After earning a master’s degree from the University of Amsterdam, he lived for six months in Vranje, Serbia reporting on the newly independent Kosovo and supervising youth cross-border cooperation programs in this troubled post-war region. He later moved to Prague, where he went on to become editor-in-chief of The Prague Post, an English-language newspaper, before leaving in 2012 to focus on writing full time. In 2014, he was a fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna, producing the documentary film “Educating Igor” for Al Jazeera television. Cunningham’s work has appeared in an array of international media including TIME, Politico, Der Spiegel (Germany), Haaretz (Israel), The American Interest, The Christian Science Monitor and Hospodárské noviny (Czech Republic), among others. He has appeared on television or radio in Austria, Belarus, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Germany, Slovakia, Turkey, Ireland, France, Portugal, the UK, United States and Canada. He lives in Sitges, Spain with his wife and daughter. In his free time he runs marathons and practices martial arts. His book The Liar: How a Double Agent in the CIA Became the Cold War's Last Honest Man is forthcoming from the Public Affairs book imprint of Hachette Books.
How did you first get interested in writing and what do you feel the medium of book writing affords writers that other forms of writing cannot accomplish?
I read a lot as a kid. I would say sometime in high school it clicked that I liked the riddle of arranging words in a clever way — though I wasn’t as clever as I thought I was.
To me, the most exciting thing about books is that there are no hard rules on they are structured or written. Coming from journalism, and depending on who you are writing for, there are some pretty rigid style guidelines — and limits on what topics qualify as being worthy of attention. This makes sense for maintaining a magazine’s brand, for example, but it can feel restrictive for writers. It’s liberating to present a story in the manner you think best.
Did your background in journalism help inform much of your writing?
Definitely. For one, there is a certain approach to research and fact checking that you develop as a journalist. I also feel lucky to have started out in journalism when daily print newspapers were still a thing. My generation is probably the last group of journalists to really start that way. In print, there was a real limit on space. If your editor said a story had to be 500 words, it really had to be 500 words because that was all the physical space there was on the page. You had to be clear and economical with words. When I started, there really were these old grizzled veteran copy editors, smoking cigarettes and absolutely carving up your text. You wanted to impress them, and never quite got there. But the fear helped you improve — and fast.
Actor Sean Connery as James Bond, or the archetypal fictional espionage spy.
What is your creative process like? Any special rituals or practices?
I’m searching for that secret formula myself. On a big project, like a book, I really do have to be immersed. Unfortunately that just means investing a lot of time and brain power into working and thinking. Sometimes things go smoothly, and sometimes it’s frustrating and you feel like you are getting nowhere. You spend all day trying to resolve some issue related to the book, but just can’t manage. Then you go for a jog or something and a solution pops into your head. It feels like it came from nowhere, but that wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t put in the hours struggling beforehand.
Have classic espionage novels, such as the works of Ian Fleming or John Le Carré, figured into your forthcoming book The Liar: How a Double Agent in the CIA Became the Cold War’s Last Honest Man at all?
Like most people, I love spy novels and films. My book is non-fiction and I was always conscious of presenting the narrative in a compelling way, but I tried to steer clear of cliches from novels. I tried to focus on the characters. So I would say my story is about people who work as spies and what that spy apparatus does to human beings — rather than espionage itself. That was a conscious choice, and I hope something that makes this book unique.
What has it been like for you in working with Clive Priddle, Anu Roy-Chaudhury and the team at Public Affairs/Hachette Books in readying your book The Liar for publication?
From the first phone conversation we had, I could tell they understood why I thought this story was so interesting. As we talked about the book, Clive was often able to articulate what I was trying to say even better than I could. That made it clear we had the same vision for the kind of book this should be.
“Real or imagined, it felt like there was some sort of reward for persevering.”
Karel František Koecher, a mole known to have penetrated the CIA.
2020 was a difficult year for everyone and book publishing was no exception. What was it like in getting a book sold to a publisher that year?
Honestly, to me it feels like it’s difficult to sell a book idea to a publisher any year. That said, obviously 2020 was a grind in all sorts of ways, so getting the book deal done did bring some extra satisfaction. We finalized the deal right around Christmas of that year so, real or imagined, it felt like there was some sort of reward for persevering. I feel very fortunate to have the opportunity. It was something I had been working on and thinking about for a long time. It’s pretty much been an all-consuming process since then.
Your book The Liar is the story of Karel Koecher, the only foreign agent known to have breached the CIA who was eventually traded on the original Bridge of Spies. Who would play Karel in a movie or TV show based on your book?
Good question. It’s a tricky part to play because the story covers multiple decades so the actor would need to pull off playing somebody at age 30, 40, 50. Let’s swing for the fences and say DiCaprio. Why not?
Benjamin Cunningham’s The Liar: How a Double Agent in the CIA Became the Cold War's Last Honest Man (Hachette Books/Public Affairs)
Any interesting books on your nightstand at the moment?
I just finished On A Day Like This by Peter Stamm. For whatever reason I have been reading a lot of novels that came out in the 1970s and early 80s (just a little before my time) lately. Right now I am reading Don DeLillo’s The Names. I am also reading a non-fiction book called Once in a Great City by David Maraniss. I grew up near Detroit, and it’s about Detroit in the year 1963. After some tough years, Detroit feels like this really vibrant and exciting place again. So it’s cool to learn more about its former heyday.
Can you tell us what you are thinking of writing next?
I do have a few things in the works. I just began work on a project about bullfighting. Right now I am really excited about the release of The Liar though. There is a pretty big gap between when the writer finishes writing and when a book actually comes out, so I am doubly ready for this to finally see the light of day.
“A lot of people have this romantic vision of what it means to be a writer. …In the end it amounts to dealing with tons of rejection and moving forward anyway.”
Do you have any advice you could share for hopeful writers eager to become published authors?
Well, it is a lot of work, more than you can imagine. A lot of people have this romantic vision of what it means to be a writer. I know I did. In the end it amounts to dealing with tons of rejection and moving forward anyway. You learn to separate rejections that teach you something from the ones that are mostly about the other person’s hangups. In the moment it’s not always obvious which is which. I don’t know if everyone has what it takes to write books, but the good news is that being rejected doesn’t mean you don’t.
Can you finish this sentence? I love reading because…
I love reading because you learn. There are books about pretty much any topic you can think of. Even in fiction, you learn about ways other people think. You can get to know people and places through books at least as well as you can in real life. A lot of times books are more honest.