David Ignatius

David Ignatius writes a twice-a-week foreign affairs column for The Washington Post. Ignatius has written 12 spy novels: "Phantom Orbit," (2024), “The Paladin,” (2020), “The Quantum Spy,” (2017), “The Director,” (2014), “Bloodmoney,” (2011), “The Increment,” (2009), “Body of Lies,” (2007), “The Sun King,” (1999), “A Firing Offense,” (1997), “The Bank of Fear,” (1994), “SIRO,” (1991), and “Agents of Innocence,” (1987). “Body of Lies” was made into a 2008 film starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe. Ignatius joined The Post in 1986 as editor of its Sunday Outlook section. In 1990 he became foreign editor, and in 1993, assistant managing editor for business news. He began writing his column in 1998 and continued even during a three-year stint as executive editor of the International Herald Tribune in Paris. Earlier in his career, Ignatius was a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, covering at various times the steel industry, the Departments of State and Justice, the CIA, the Senate and the Middle East. Ignatius grew up in Washington, D.C., and majored in Social Studies at Harvard College and economics at Kings College, Cambridge. He lives in Washington with his wife and has three daughters. Honors and Awards: 2018 Finalist team, Pulitzer Prize for Public Service; 2018 George Polk Award; 2010 Urbino International Press Award; 2013 Overseas Press Club Award for Foreign Affairs Commentary; Lifetime Achievement Award, International Committee for Foreign Journalists; Legion D'Honneur awarded by the French government; 2004 Edward Weintal Prize; 2000 Gerald Loeb Award for Commentary. As The Post’s foreign editor, Ignatius supervised the paper’s Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.