‘He left the world in ruins’: the author who defied the Taliban and burning tyres to tell Alexander the Great’s epic story
He is the most powerful ruler ever – and his first biographer was crucified. What drew Edmund Richardson, winner of the £50,000 Baillie Gifford prize, to his short tumultuous life? He was the most powerful man in the world but he was brought down by one battle too many after a decade at the top. The story of Alexander the Great might be more than 2,000 years old, but it seems timely that a new biography of the…
Key points
- Edmund Richardson won the £50,000 Baillie Gifford prize for his biography Alexander: God, King, Man.
- Richardson says Alexander reshaped reality more profoundly than almost anyone else in history.
- Richardson was diagnosed with cancer about three years ago while writing the book.
Edmund Richardson has won the £50,000 Baillie Gifford prize for nonfiction for his biography Alexander: God, King, Man, The Guardian reports. The book examines the life of the ruler of the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon, who became king aged 20 in 336BC and had conquered much of the known world by the time he was 30.
Richardson, a professor of classics, told The Guardian the prize came as a surprise. He said he had expected Patrick Radden Keefe, a previous winner, to take the award for London Falling.
Research and travel
Richardson spent about a decade researching the book, travelling from the storage rooms of the British Museum in London to the catacombs of Egypt and the foothills of the Himalayas. He said computer simulation and new discoveries gave him access to evidence and contemporary sources unavailable to earlier historians.
His travels were interrupted by modern unrest. He described a short encounter with a barricade of burning tyres during a protest in Cairo, and his visit to Afghanistan was abandoned after the Taliban ransacked his hotel. He noted that terrible things tend to happen to people who write the Alexander story, citing the first biographer, Callisthenes, who was crucified according to some sources.
Alexander wants to transform the world – and he leaves it in ruins.
— Edmund Richardson
Illness and the book
Richardson was diagnosed with cancer around three years ago, having first had a melanoma as a teenager. He said he was writing the book not knowing if he would be around when it was published, and was not sure he would finish it.
He was given the all clear, but last year he was back in hospital after collapsing. He said he returned to his manuscript with a feeling of trying to find hope where the light seemed to have gone out.
