Daniel silva parents nationality

Interview

Daniel Silva discusses his writing, why he is fascinated with the spy thriller genre, the research he undertook to write The English Assassin, and the inspiration for his lead character Gabriel Allon, who also appears in Silva's latest book The Confessor

How did you become interested in the subject of Switzerland's Nazi collaboration as a topic for a book?
I've always been interested in WWII in general, and I've read a lot of WWII history. The secret history of Switzerland during the war is mind blowing. It's such a fascinating and strange country – there really is this national preoccupation with secrecy at all levels. And I've always been interested in art…. So the history of Nazi art looting, and of how all these paintings and other works of art made their way into Switzerland, was a natural. It's just something that I've always found engrossing, and at some point it became clear that it would make excellent material for a thriller.

You quote Jean Ziegler's The Swiss, the Gold, and the Dead at the beginning of this book. Was that book, which was about looted gold, not art, of course, in any way an inspiration for this one? Did you read any of the other books about Swiss banks and Nazi gold that came out around the same time?
I decided on this topic – looted art – first, and the Swiss connection came second. Yes, I think it was Nazi art first, Switzerland second. But Ziegler's book was just such a lyrical and...

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