David R. Ignatius is a journalist and novelist best known for his books Agents of Innocence (1987), The Sun King (1999), Body of Lies (2008), The Increment (2010), and Bloodmoney (2011). He began his career as an editor at the Washington Monthly and then, in the mid-1970s, moved to the Wall Street Journal, where he spent ten years as a reporter, first covering the Justice Department and the CIA, and later serving as the paper’s Middle East correspondent. In 1984 he became the Wall Street Journal’s chief diplomatic correspondent and two years later moved to the Washington Post, where as foreign editor he netted the paper a Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of the first Iraq War. Ignatius began writing his Post column on global politics, economics, and international affairs in 1999, for which he received the Gerald Loeb Award for Commentary and a Edward Weintal Prize. In 2000, he became the executive editor of the International Herald Tribune, before returning to the Washington Post.

 
Ignatius has received multiple honors for his writing and journalism, including the Legion of Honor from the French Republic, the Urbino World Press Award from the Italian Republic, and a lifetime achievement award from the International Committee for Foreign Journalism. His writing has also appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Atlantic Monthly, Foreign Affairs, New Republic, Talk Magazine, and the Washington Monthly.