Tobias Jones

Tobias Jones was born and brought up in Somerset. After working on the London Review of Books and the Independent on Sunday, he moved to Italy for five years. His first book, The Dark Heart of Italy was an attempt to understand the cultural background to a country that had elected Silvio Berlusconi. His second book, Utopian Dreams, was a quest to find the perfect community in which to share money, meals and ideals. Both books had sort-of sequels: Blood on the Altar described the disappearance of a teenage girl in the deep south of Italy, and the corruption and organised crime that impeded the investigation; and A Place of Refuge is a description of the first five years of the community Tobias co-founded with his wife in Somerset, called Windsor Hill Wood. The film rights to both sequels have been sold to Cosmopolitan Pictures. Fascinated by true crime, Tobias has also written extensively about Italy’s many unsolved murders; influenced by the brilliant Ross MacDonald, he has published three crime novels set in Italy. Tobias has written and presented many documentaries for BBC television and radio and has presented two eccentric series for the Italian state broadcaster, RAI. He has been a columnist for the Observer and, in Italy, for Internazionale. He has taught in various prisons and universities, and is a regular tutor on Arvon courses. His literary ambition is to persuade a publisher to commission a book about the brilliant Italian singer-songwriter, Fabrizio De Andre.