NEWS UPDATE MAY 2020:
In May 2020 Up Against the Wall received an Honourable Mention in a prestigious Baltic Studies book prize run by the Association for the Advancement of Baltic Studies.
The awards committee said my book 'integrates many personal testimonies from ordinary citizens of Latvia, and thus enriches the study of the Soviet period in Latvia while making a persuasive argument that Latvians were key players in the establishment of the Soviet security forces.
This is a great honour! The list of those people is too long for here, but deep thanks to you all.
PERSONAL DETAILS
I'm an award-winning former BBC radio producer and documentary maker now writing documentary history journalism.
My most recent book - Up Against the Wall - was published in 2019 by Helion In English and by Latvijas Mediji in Latvian. It's an oral history of the KGB in Latvia.
It explores the relationship between Latvians and the Soviet security police: first the Cheka, the revolutionary Bolshevik secret police that Latvians helped establish, and then after Stalin's Purges, the NKVD during the immediate post-war suppression of the partisans and the 1949 deportations.
Reorganised into the KGB in 1954 but still known by its original name, the Cheka dominated life during the subsequent forty-year Soviet occupation.
The book is called Up Against the Wall - the KGB and Latvia. and can be ordered here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Up-Against-Wall-KGB-Latvia/dp/1911628836
There's a video about the book a little further down this page.
My first book about Latvia during WWII - Blood in the Forest - the end of the Second World War in the Courland Pocket - is now available in three languages: English, Latvian and now Lithuanian.
It's an oral history of the final six months of the war in western Latvia as the armies of Hitler and Stalin fought themselves to a cataclysmic and bloody stalemate. Blood in the Forest - the end of the Second World War in the Courland Pocket is published by Helion.co.uk.
Booksmonthly.co.uk said: 'Well written, compelling drama, made all the more readable by the author's persistence in uncovering eye-witness accounts of what actually happened.'
and Recollectionsofwwii.blogspot.co.uk said: 'The author's skilled use of interviews combined with his personal travelogue makes it one of the best books I have read in a number of years'.
My first book 'Fire and Ice' tells the story of the scorched earth destruction of Norway by the Nazis. It's published by The History Press and first came out in October 2014. It was published in paperback in 2018.
In May 2020 Up Against the Wall received an Honourable Mention in a prestigious Baltic Studies book prize run by the Association for the Advancement of Baltic Studies.
The awards committee said my book 'integrates many personal testimonies from ordinary citizens of Latvia, and thus enriches the study of the Soviet period in Latvia while making a persuasive argument that Latvians were key players in the establishment of the Soviet security forces.
This is a great honour! The list of those people is too long for here, but deep thanks to you all.
PERSONAL DETAILS
I'm an award-winning former BBC radio producer and documentary maker now writing documentary history journalism.
My most recent book - Up Against the Wall - was published in 2019 by Helion In English and by Latvijas Mediji in Latvian. It's an oral history of the KGB in Latvia.
It explores the relationship between Latvians and the Soviet security police: first the Cheka, the revolutionary Bolshevik secret police that Latvians helped establish, and then after Stalin's Purges, the NKVD during the immediate post-war suppression of the partisans and the 1949 deportations.
Reorganised into the KGB in 1954 but still known by its original name, the Cheka dominated life during the subsequent forty-year Soviet occupation.
The book is called Up Against the Wall - the KGB and Latvia. and can be ordered here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Up-Against-Wall-KGB-Latvia/dp/1911628836
There's a video about the book a little further down this page.
My first book about Latvia during WWII - Blood in the Forest - the end of the Second World War in the Courland Pocket - is now available in three languages: English, Latvian and now Lithuanian.
It's an oral history of the final six months of the war in western Latvia as the armies of Hitler and Stalin fought themselves to a cataclysmic and bloody stalemate. Blood in the Forest - the end of the Second World War in the Courland Pocket is published by Helion.co.uk.
Booksmonthly.co.uk said: 'Well written, compelling drama, made all the more readable by the author's persistence in uncovering eye-witness accounts of what actually happened.'
and Recollectionsofwwii.blogspot.co.uk said: 'The author's skilled use of interviews combined with his personal travelogue makes it one of the best books I have read in a number of years'.
My first book 'Fire and Ice' tells the story of the scorched earth destruction of Norway by the Nazis. It's published by The History Press and first came out in October 2014. It was published in paperback in 2018.
Biography
I'm a producer, reporter, presenter and media trainer, starting in local newspapers then spending ten years in BBC news. I worked first in Manchester, then launched Five Live Breakfast, before moving on to the BBC World Service and World Service TV.
I worked in music radio for 15 years, winning many awards reviving the BBC Radio Ballads and crossing America, Asia, Africa and Europe making documentaries for the BBC World Service, 5-Live, Radio 4 and Radio 2.
Now I teach a new generation how to hone their skills as journalists, do media consultancy work as a specialist trainer at Cambridge University and am working on an oral history of the 15th Latvian Division in Pomerania between January and May 1945 - a key moment in the Latvian diaspora in the US, Canada, Australia, Germany and the UK.
Contact me at: vincehunt01@yahoo.co.uk
Facebook author page On Twitter @scorchedvh
I'm a producer, reporter, presenter and media trainer, starting in local newspapers then spending ten years in BBC news. I worked first in Manchester, then launched Five Live Breakfast, before moving on to the BBC World Service and World Service TV.
I worked in music radio for 15 years, winning many awards reviving the BBC Radio Ballads and crossing America, Asia, Africa and Europe making documentaries for the BBC World Service, 5-Live, Radio 4 and Radio 2.
Now I teach a new generation how to hone their skills as journalists, do media consultancy work as a specialist trainer at Cambridge University and am working on an oral history of the 15th Latvian Division in Pomerania between January and May 1945 - a key moment in the Latvian diaspora in the US, Canada, Australia, Germany and the UK.
Contact me at: vincehunt01@yahoo.co.uk
Facebook author page On Twitter @scorchedvh
Blood in the Forest was my first book about Latvia, and has been translated into Latvian and Lithuanian.
Blood in the Forest was published by Helion in May 2017.