Paul Spike

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Paul Robert Spike (born 3 August 1947) is an author, editor and journalist who grew up in New York's Greenwich Village but has lived in Europe, primarily London, most of his life. He was educated at Columbia College (where he edited the Columbia Review in 1970) and St. Catherine's College, Oxford. Of his five books, his memoir Photographs of My Father (Knopf, 1973) is most widely known. An autobiographical account of the murder of his father, civil rights leader Rev. Robert W. Spike, the book received exceptional praise and was chosen by the New York Public Library as one of its "Ten Best Books of The Year". His four other books include a collection of short stories, two political thrillers and the cult novelization of Terry Gilliam's Jabberwocky (film) (written under the pseudonym Ralph Hoover). He has won the Paris Review Humour Prize, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and a Danforth Foundation grant.

Spike has written about politics, literature, film, style, travel and food for a wide range of UK newspapers and magazines, including The Times, Sunday Times, Daily Telegraph, Independent, Evening Standard, 'Times Literary Supplement, GQ, Conde Nast Traveller and Vogue, where he is a Contributing Editor. He launched the Pandora column in the Independent newspaper in 1998.

In 1997, Spike became the first American ever to be appointed Editor of the 150 year old British humour magazine Punch which he re-launched as a weekly investigative and satirical gadfly, but soon fell out with its controversial owner Mohamed Al-Fayed and left the magazine.

Spike has a son and a daughter by author Maureen Freely and a son by editor Alexandra Shulman, both ex-wives.