Frederick Forsyth was born in Ashford, Kent. He was educated at a minor school in Tonbridge and at Granada University in Spain. After five months in Spain, he returned to England where he joined the R.A.F. in May 1956. In 1958, he joined the Eastern Daily Press as a reporter. In 1961, he became a foreign correspondent for Reuters at their Paris Office. Soon he was transferred behind the Iron Curtain, where he became Reuter's sole representative in East Germany, Czechoslovakia and Hungary. In 1967, he joined BBC Television as a diplomatic correspondent. He was send to Biafra and landed in the middle of a war. He began sending regular first-hand reports to the BBC in London. After a while the BBC became concerned about the quality of his reports and ordered him to return to London. He did so and resigned. He soon returned to Biafra, this time as a freelance to Time magazine, the Evening Standard and the Daily Express. Depressed with the outcome of the war, he returned to London where he decided to write a novel. He wrote The Day of the Jackal in 35 days. Most publishers turned the book down. It was finally published by Hutchinson. The rest is history.