see also Guardian photo gallery

I am a writer and journalist.

My latest book, Alone in Japan: A Journey to the Future will be published by Allen Lane/ Penguin Books in March 2026. It is a travel/current affairs book, in which I rove around Japan, exploring its demographic woes - an ageing society and a chronically low birth rate - and try to anticipate how Japan is going to change over the next thirty years.



the bed trick pleasure gardens pleasure gardens the bed trick

 

 

 

My last book 'The Island that Disappeared' was published by Explore Books in 2017. The following year, it was published in the United States by Melville House. It is a potted history of the Caribbean, and Britain's impact on it, as seen from Old Providence, a tiny, isolated island that was one of England's earliest colonies. Read more about it here.

 

Prior to that, I wrote 'Short Walks from Bogota: Journeys in the New Colombia', which was published by Allen Lane/Penguin in 2012. It is a timely and multi-faceted exploration of a country as fascinating as it is feared.

 

In 2009, Penguin published my first book 'The Candy Machine: How Cocaine Took Over the World'. In 2010, it was published as 'Cocaine Nation: How the White Trade Took Over the World' in the United States by Pegasus Books.

 

'The Candy Machine/ Cocaine Nation' is based on over 60 interviews with people involved in all aspects of the cocaine business, including coca growers, traffickers, narcotics police, judges, casual users and addicts. If you'd like to read some abridged versions of the interviews, click here.

 

Prior to writing my first book, I worked as Campaigns Director for the TUC's Justice for Colombia campaign, which organizes for human rights in Colombia. Between 1995 and 2005, I worked in documentary production. In 2001, I spent a year living and working in Colombia before making 'Resistencia: Hip-Hop in Colombia', a feature-length documentary that won awards at film festivals around the world and was broadcast in Sweden, Finland, Australia and New Zealand.

 

Available at independent booksellers including across London: thelondonbookshopmap.org

or at Amazon:

Alone in Japan

The Island that Disappeared

Short Walks from Bogota

The Candy Machine

 

If you'd like to discuss any aspect of my work to date, or enquire about commissions, feel free to email me at tomfeiling55@gmail.com.