Said K. Aburish was born in the West Bank in 1935. He attended university in the United States and subsequently worked as a consultant to several Arab governments and as Middle East correspondent for Radio Free Europe and the Daily Mail. He is now a journalist and author and has written for, among others, the Independent, the Washington Post, and Liberation. His books include Pay-Off: Wheeling and Dealing in the Arab World, The St. George Hotel Bar (published in paperback as Beirut Spy), and Children of Bethany. He lives in London.