How, during the Cold War, I helped the best-selling author write a novel highlighting Ukraine’s predicament and using my biography for one of the main characters.
From: Kyiv Post By Bohdan Nahaylo
Frederick Forsyth, one of the preeminent British authors who specialized in espionage and the Cold War, died on June 9 at the age of 86. A former RAF pilot, investigative journalist and informant for British intelligence, he was best known for his novels “The Day of the Jackal” (1971), “The Odessa File” (1972) and “The Dogs of War” (1974).
Forsyth wrote 24 books, which sold a total of 75 million copies worldwide and spawned several classic films.
I was privileged to have known this master of the political thriller at the height of his fame in the late 1970s and to have assisted him in producing his fourth bestseller, but one with a very special difference.
“The Devil’s Alternative” was bold and prescient for its time – it appeared in 1979 but was set in 1982. The novel spotlighted suppressed Ukraine’s strive for independence when there was little interest in a country that was all too often dismissed as simply a region of Russia.
Voice of Ukraine 