I am an expressive and adventurous non-fiction writer. My books – which have been translated into a dozen languages – include the UK top ten bestsellers Stalin's Nose and Under the Dragon, as well as Berlin: Imagine a City – 'The most extraordinary work of history I've ever read,' according to the Washington Post, which named it a Book of the Year. I have won awards from the Canada Council and the Arts Council of England and was nominated for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.

In my humanitarian work, I have written about the missing civilians of the Yugoslav Wars for the International Committee of the Red Cross, on divided Cyprus for the UN Committee on Missing Persons and on North Korea for the British Council.

I am a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and my Royal Literary Fund Fellowship explored the threat posed to European democracy, enabling me to visit Transnistria, a criminalised nowhereland founded by Russian oligarchs and retired KGB officers – a journey which helped me to amplify the warning in my latest book, Pravda Ha Ha. 'MacLean must surely be the outstanding, and most indefatigable, traveller-writer of our time,' wrote the late John le Carré.