Joan Smith

Joan Alison Smith (born 27 August 1953, London) is an English novelist, journalist and human rights activist, who is a former chair of the Writers in Prison committee in the English section of International PEN. She is a columnist with The Independent (UK), but has also has written columns for The Independent on Sunday and The Guardian and her reviews appear in the Financial Times, The Sunday Times and The Independent. She is one of the presenters on What the Papers Say and a regular contributor to BBC radio.

Her former partner is Denis MacShane, the controversial Labour MP

Affiliations

• Honorary Associate National Secular Society
• The Independent

Publications

Columns

• Joan Smith, Punishment for people who don't deserve it, The Independent, 31 May 2007. (Steven Rose provides a criticism of this column here: Why pick on Israel? Because its actions are wrong, The Independent, 4 June 2007.)
• Joan Smith, The evidence indicates that political Islam hates our way of life, not our foreign policy, The Independent, 4 July 2007.
• Joan Smith, The common factors behind the bombers, The Independent, 11 July 2007.

Joan Smith Novels

• What Will Survive, Arcadia, 2007.
• Moralities
• Misogynies