HYDPARK is organising an 'In Conversation' with Ben Judah, a British-French journalist and the author of This Is London and Fragile Empire, will speak on Alt-Right, Putin, Trump, Brexit, immigration, tax and evasion, war and environmental concerns, British novels and more.

Ben Judah, born in London, spent his childhood in Romania and Yugoslavia, where he attended the Lycée Français Anna de Noailles and the École Française de Belgrade, and lataer, attended Oxford University to read Modern History and Politics, where he gained a first. He speaks both French and Russian.

Judah began his career in Russia as a reporter for Reuters in Moscow, travelling widely in Russia and the former Soviet Union.

As a conflict reporter he covered the 2008 Russo-Georgian War, the 2010 Kyrgyz Revolution and the 2011 Tunisian Revolution. Since 2008 he has been a regular contributor to Standpoint (magazine) reporting extensively from the Caucasus, Siberia, Central Asia and Xinjiang.

His first book Fragile Empire (2013), a study of Vladimir Putin's Russia, was published by Yale University Press.

Judah has since become a regular columnist on Russian affairs and London's role as a money laundering centre, writing in frequently in The New York Times, the Financial Times and The Sunday Times. He is a regular guest on CNN, BBC NEWS and Channel 4 News and is a contributing writer for Politico Europe where he reports on Britain.

In 2016 he was shortlisted for Feature Writer Of The Year at the British Press Awards.

His second book This Is London (2016) was published by Picador.The Guardian writes that this "epic account of contemporary London is ... motivated by a desire to show our capital in its true (new) colours: as a megacity of global migrants, some of them rich, most of them poor, few of them happy with their lot."