Patrick Seale

Patrick Abram Seale (7 May 1930 – 11 April 2014) was a Belfast-born British journalist and author who specialised in the Middle East. A former correspondent for The Observer, he interviewed many Middle Eastern leaders and personalities. Seale was also a literary agent and art dealer.

Patrick Abram Seale was a Belfast-born British journalist. His father was Morris Siegel Seale (1896–1993), the Arabist and theologian, who was a Jewish convert to Presbyterianism and Christian missionary in Syria, where Patrick spent most of his first 14 years. He attended Balliol and St Antony's College, Oxford, where he specialised in Middle Eastern history. He obtained his D.Litt at Oxford University. His sister was the fashion designer Thea Porter.

His journalistic experience includes six years with Reuters, mainly as a financial journalist, and over twelve with The Observer, covering the Middle East, Africa, and India.

Seale authored numerous books, including The Struggle for Syria (1965), French Revolution 1968 (1968), Philby, the Long Road to Moscow (1973), The Hilton Assignment (1973), Asad of Syria: The Struggle for the Middle East (1988), Abu Nidal: A Gun for Hire (1992), and The Struggle for Arab Independence: Riad el-Solh and the Makers of the Modern Middle East (2010). He ghostwrote Desert Warrior, the 1995 Gulf War memoirs of Saudi prince Khaled bin Sultan bin Abdulaziz.

Based in France, Seale was syndicated by Agence Global. His columns appeared in most major newspapers around the world, and were carried weekly by several newspapers, including Al-Hayat (London), Al-Ittihad (Abu Dhabi), The Daily Star (Beirut), The Saudi Gazette (Jeddah) and Gulf News (Dubai).

He married twice. First to Lamorna Heath in 1971 (died 1978) by whom he had two children, Orlando and Delilah. His second wife, Rana Kabbani, from whom he was separated, was the mother of his younger children, Alexander and Yasmine.

Seale died from brain cancer on 11 April 2014, aged 83, in London.