Robert Macklin is one of Australia’s most respected and popular authors of Australian history and biography.

His four novels and twenty-three books of non-fiction have won many prizes including the prestigious $30,000 Blake Dawson award for his history of BHP Billiton, The Big Fella in 2009. His controversial history of Norfolk Island, Dark Paradise in 2013 won the Canberra Critics Circle award for the best book of the year, as did his One False Move, the story of four Australian naval officers who travelled to Britain in WWII and volunteered to defuse the massive German parachute mines being dropped on English cities and ports.

He is the authorised biographer of former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and prior to the bestselling Hamilton Hume he has written three biographies of SAS soldiers and the authoritative history of Australia’s Special Forces and intelligence agencies entitled Warrior Elite.

His new work Dragon and Kangaroo, the hidden history of Australia–China relations was published in August 2017.

Born in Queensland and educated at Brisbane Grammar School, the University of Queensland and the ANU, he has been a jackaroo, a leading journalist, documentary film maker, university lecturer and in government the press secretary to an Australian Prime Minister, Sir John ‘Black Jack’ McEwen. He lives in Canberra and Tuross Head with his wife, Wendy.