Hugh Barnes is a journalist and Russian specialist, born in London in 1963 and educated at Oxford and Cambridge universities. He covered the wars in Kosovo for the Financial Times, New Statesman and Independent on Sunday, and the war in Afghanistan for the Sunday Times. He also worked in Moscow for three years as a correspondent for Agence France Presse. Hugh is also a well-known Russian literary critic and scholar. His novel Special Effects was hailed by the Sunday Telegraph as "fizzing with intriguing ideas".
