Simon Kuper facts for kids

Simon Kuper is a British and French author and journalist. He is well-known for his writing in the Financial Times newspaper. He is also famous for writing about football (soccer). Simon studied at Oxford University, Harvard University, and a university in Berlin. He started his journalism career at the Financial Times in 1994. Today, he writes about many different topics. These include politics, society, culture, sports, and city planning.

Simon writes a popular column in the weekend edition of FT Magazine. He has won the British Society of Magazine Editors' award for Columnist of the Year twice. He has also written for other newspapers like The Guardian and The Times.

Simon Kuper writes about sports in a special way. He looks at sports from an anthropological view. This means he studies how sports connect to human society and culture. Because of his unique style, he has won several awards. This includes the 1994 William Hill Sports Book of the Year. Time Magazine called him “one of the world’s leading writers on soccer.” The Economic Times said he was “one of the world's most famous football writers.”

He has written several books. One of his award-winning books is Football Against the Enemy. Another is Chums: How a Tiny Caste of Oxford Tories Took Over the UK. This book was a Sunday Times Bestseller about UK politics.

Simon was born in Uganda. His parents were from South Africa. He spent most of his childhood in the Netherlands. Today, he lives in Paris, France.

Early Life and Education

Simon Kuper was born in Uganda. His parents were born in South Africa. When he was a child, his family moved to Leiden in the Netherlands. His father, Adam Kuper, was a professor who studied human societies at Leiden University. Simon is named after his grandfather, Simon Meyer Kuper. His grandfather was a judge in South Africa. He was sadly killed in 1963.

Simon has lived in many places around the world. These include Jamaica, Sweden, Palo Alto, California, Berlin, and London. He studied History and German at Oxford University. He also attended Harvard University as a special student called a Kennedy Scholar.

Journalism Career

Simon Kuper started working at the Financial Times in 1994. He first wrote about money and worked in other areas. He left the newspaper in 1998 but came back in 2002. Since then, he has been a sports columnist. Now, he writes a general column for the Weekend FT. He covers many topics, from politics to books. He also writes about cities like London, Paris, Johannesburg, and Miami. Simon has also written for other publications. These include The Times, The Observer, ESPN, and The Spectator.

Simon also writes in Dutch, his childhood language. His articles have appeared in Dutch newspapers like NRC Handelsblad and Het Financieele Dagblad. He has also written for the football magazine Hard Gras and the online newspaper De Correspondent.

Working at the Financial Times

Simon Kuper is seen as a very important writer at the Financial Times. Since he joined in 1994, he has had many different jobs. He writes about a wide range of topics. These include sports, popular culture, and politics.

He began his career at the Financial Times as a reporter. His work often takes him away from his home in Paris. He travels to cover and explain global events from different parts of the world.

His sports writing is special because it goes beyond just scores and statistics. He looks at how sports affect society, politics, and culture worldwide. For example, he writes about the culture around football. This includes rivalries like the Old Firm rivalry. He also writes about the games themselves. Sometimes, he writes about cricket. He has written about cricket in the Netherlands and cricket in South Africa during a time when the country was boycotted.

For many years, he has also written for the FT's Weekend Magazine. He writes columns about life and arts. These often include long articles and interviews. They cover topics like current events, travel, history, and politics.

Simon Kuper has won the British Society of Magazine Editors' award for Columnist of the Year twice. He won in 2016 and again in 2020.

Books Written by Simon Kuper

Simon Kuper has written several books. His first book was Football Against the Enemy (1994). This book won the William Hill Sports Book of the Year award. Later, it was released in the United States as Soccer Against the Enemy. The newspaper The Times said about the book: "If you like football, read it. If you don't like football, read it."

In 2003, he published Ajax, The Dutch, the War: Football in Europe during the Second World War. In 2009, he wrote Soccernomics with Stefan Szymanski. In this book, they created a way to predict football outcomes. Using their formula, Kuper predicted that Serbia and Brazil would play in the 2010 FIFA World Cup Final.

His book The Football Men came out in 2011. It is a collection of articles about the world of football from over 13 years. It also includes new pieces written just for the book. The newspaper The Independent said that "Simon Kuper is a refreshing antidote to the current media obsession with 'getting the nannies [nanny goats = quotes]', however banal, from players." They also noted that he "doesn't mince his words." He described some famous players in a very direct way.

Kuper's book Barça: The Rise and Fall of the Club that Built Modern Football was published in 2021. It won the Sunday Times award for Football Book of the Year in 2022.

Also in 2021, Simon released The Happy Traitor. This book tells the story of George Blake. Blake was a British spy who worked for the Soviet Union. The book is praised for explaining Blake's complex character in detail. It shows his changing beliefs and personal struggles. This book is an important addition to Simon Kuper's work.

In 2022, he published Chums - How a Tiny Caste of Oxford Tories Took Over the UK. This book is about how a group of friends from Oxford University came to have a lot of power in the UK government in Westminster.

Personal Life

Simon Kuper lives in Paris with his wife, Pamela Druckerman. She is an American author. They have three children. In 2022, Simon wrote in the Financial Times that he had become a French citizen. He had lived in Paris for more than 20 years before that.

See also

In Spanish: Simon Kuper para niños