Gilbert Reid

Gilbert Reid was born in Toronto, Canada, and studied at Trinity College of the University of Toronto, at the London School of Economics, at the University of Cambridge, England, at the University of London, England, and at l’Institut d'Etudes Politiques (Sciences Po'), Paris, France.

He has worked for the Canadian Department of External Affairs, in Ottawa, in London, and in Rome. He has also worked for Working Party Three – economic policy coordination – of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in Paris.

He taught for many years – between 1971 and 1978 – at the University of Messina in Sicily, and worked in film and public relations in Italy for more than a decade. From the early 1980s to the mid 1990s he was director of the Canadian Cultural Centre in Rome, while also writing for the Times Literary Supplement and many other publications. Since 1995, he has written opinion pieces and book reviews for the Globe and Mail and other publications, and he has written many television documentary series – notably "For King and Empire" and "For King and Country" on Canadians in the two World Wars, many TV specials, and he has written and narrated many programs for CBC's IDEAS, among recent programs, two five-part series, "Gilbert Reid's Italy" and "Gilbert Reid's France." His collection of short stories, "So this is Love," published in Canada and the United States, was named by the Globe and Mail, one of the "hundred best books of the year."

He is fluent in English, French, and Italian, and can get by in German. He is presently completing a series of four novels featuring a tender-hearted, good-natured – but hungry – vampire super heroine.