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Hello and welcome to the book club podcast.

I'm Sam Leith, the literary editor of The Spectator,

and in honour of the great Frederick Forsyth who died this week,

we've delved into the archives to bring you this episode,

recorded with him in 2021,

to mark the 50th anniversary of the release of his classic thriller, The Day of the Jackal.

Hope you enjoy it.

Hello and welcome to The Spectator's Book Club podcast.

I'm Sam Leith, the literary editor of The Spectator.

And this week, it's my very

great pleasure to introduce Frederick Forsyth. We're celebrating not a new book, but the Day of the

Jackal, his first novel, which is 50 years old this month. Freddie, welcome. Thank you very,

be kind. To start with, I mean, the Day ofjackle is now an absolute kind of monument in the landscape of thrillers of the last century.

But obviously, you know, when you were writing it, it wasn't yet.

Can you start by giving me a sense of the world in which you were writing it and where you were and how it came about?

Well, I mean, looking back over 50 years, I was still bewildered now as I was then. Now, it is unusual. Most things clarify with a passage of time, but this one hasn't, because

to this day, it is an oddity that it ever succeeded. I think it is grossly unfair that it succeeded the way it did, not to me, but to

all, not you Michael, the other strivers, because normally if a book's going to go that big,

...