Alice Spigelman was born in Hungary and moved to Sydney as a child with her family in 1956. She has written plays about psychoanalysis, Virginia Woolf and Miles Franklin which were performed in several Australian cities. Her biography Almost Full Circle on the international architect and proponent of modernism Harry Seidler was published by Brandl & Schlesinger. She has reviewed books for The Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian and given talks on subjects such as Catherine the Great, Harry Seidler and literary fiction and biography. She was a director of Australia for UNHCR and NIDA, Australia’s training institute for students in the performing arts, and is currently the Chair of Sculpture by the Sea, the international sculpture exhibition on the shores of Bondi and Cottesloe in Perth.

“ A thrilling and chilling book about how the past is never passed. Innocent eyes open at discovering betrayal and collaboration when a communist state collapses – a fine. novel that is all too true to life” -- Geoffrey Robertson QC (a human rights barrister, academic, author and broadcaster)

“Mysterious, thrilling and dramatic. The Budapest Job is an extraordinary book, a skilful and fast moving, sometimes frightening evocation of the agonies of Hungary under Stalinism and still today.” -- William Shawcross (author)