William Chislett (born Oxford, 1951) is Emeritus Senior Research Fellow at the Madrid-based Elcano Royal Institute. He reported on Spain’s 1975-78 transition to democracy for The Times. Between 1978 and 1984 he was based in Mexico City for The Financial Times, covering Mexico and Central America, before returning to Madrid in 1986 as a translator (principally for Grupo Santander) and writer. He has written books on Spain, Portugal, Chile, Ecuador, Panama, Finland, El Salvador and Turkey for Euromoney Publications. The Writers and Scholars Educational Trust published his The Spanish Media since Franco in 1979. Banco Central Hispano published his book España: en busca del éxito in 1992 (originally published that same year by Euromoney), Spain: at a Turning Point in 1994, and Spain: the Central Hispano Handbook, a yearly review, between 1996 and 1998. Banco Santander Central Hispano published his dictionary of economic terms in 1999 and his Spain at a Glance in 2001. He wrote the section on Latin America for Business – The Ultimate Resource (Bloomsbury, 2002).

In 2002 the Elcano Royal Institute published his book The Internationalization of the Spanish Economy, in 2003 Spanish Direct Investment in Latin America: Opportunities and Challenges and in 2005 The United States and Spain: In Search of Mutual Rediscovery (all are available in PDF format on the Elcano website).

He has also written Working Papers on Turkey and Cyprus for Elcano and between 2004 and October 2021 wrote a monthly report on Spain for the Institute called Inside Spain, which covered foreign policy, the economy, politics, the corporate scene and other matters. Inside Spain assumed a new format in November 2021 and is now a monthly essay on a single subject and remains part of the monthly Boletín/Newsletter.

He writes the article on Spain for the Annual Register (founded in 1758 by Edmund Burke). He contributed to the book produced by the German Presidency of the European Union to mark the 50th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome. His book on Spain (Going Places, Economic, Political and Social Progress, 1975-2008) was published in January, 2008, by Telefónica. The Open Society Foundation (Turkey) published his paper comparing Spain and Turkey’s EU paths in December 2008. In 2013, Oxford University Press published his book on Spain in the “What Everyone Needs to Know” series. This book was translated into Spanish, updated and extended, and published by Espasa as Microhistoria de España in 2020.

In November 2003 he was a visiting scholar at Bilkent University, Ankara, and in April 2005 at the King Juan Carlos I of Spain Centre, New York University. He has spoken at Oxford, London School of Economics, Princeton, Harvard, Chicago, Georgetown, Suffolk and Bogazici (Istanbul) universities, and at the 2009 Roundtable on Spain of The Economist.

In 2018, he curated the exhibition on the émigré Spanish writer Arturo Barea at the Cervantes Institute in Madrid, and was responsible for the publication, for the first time in Spain, of three of Barea’s works. He also helped organise the restoration of Barea’s commemorative stone in Faringdon, the placing of a plaque on his favourite pub, The Volunteer, and a square in Madrid bearing Barea’s name.

The Spanish government granted him Spanish nationality in November 2021 under the special route known as Carta de Naturaleza and in the form of a Royal Decree, signed by King Felipe. He is married and has two sons.

For any information or enquiries please feel free to contact me at: wchislett [at] gmail [dot] com