ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Michael Farr was born in Paris in 1953 and four years later The Adventures of Tintin were the first books he read. Educated at Harrow School, he obtained a scholarship to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he read Theology and Fine Art, gaining an MA.
Like Tintin he was for many years a reporter, first for Reuters and then for The Daily Telegraph in many of the countries frequented by the Belgian ace journalist.
In 1979 Michael Farr was sent to Africa by The Daily Telegraph. Two years later he returned to Germany, where he was the Telegraph's chief correspondent until 1988. During this time he covered stories in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Farr was present at the fall of the Berlin Wall and closely followed the break up of the Soviet bloc.
Farr wrote about his experiences in a book entitled Vanishing Borders, the Rediscovery of Eastern Germany, Poland and Bohemia, published by Viking/Penguin. In 1992, it was shortlisted for the Thomas Cook travel book prize. He then went on to write Berlin! Berlin! Its Culture, Its Times published by Kyle Cathie.
After meeting Hergé in 1978, he was inspired to become a pioneer Tintinologist, the biographer of both Tintin and Hergé, and the leading British expert on Tintin. He is the author of more than a dozen books on the subject, including the best-selling Tintin, The Complete Companion (2001), which has been translated into some 30 languages, Tintin & Co (2007), his study of the principal characters from the Tintin series, and his biography of Hergé, The Adventures of Hergé, Creator of Tintin (2007).
Farr has also translated a number of books about Tintin from French into English, and is currently engaged in a new English translation of The Adventures of Tintin for the digital edition, now available on the Apple App Store.
Michael Farr often appears on radio/television broadcasts and programmes talking about Tintin; he participated in Anders Østergaard's 2003 full-length documentary feature Tintin et Moi (Tintin and I), and features in an interview on the Blu-ray Disc of Steven Spielberg's and Peter Jackson's The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn (2011).
He travels regularly lecturing on Tintin and is a frequent speaker at literary festivals, schools, universities, societies and events. For more information about organising a talk with Michael Farr, please see the talks page.
He now lives in London with his wife and daughter, both of whom are reporters.
