Peter Matthiessen

Peter Matthiessen is an American naturalist and acclaimed author of numerous works of historical fiction and nonfiction. Born in New York City in 1927, Matthiessen had already begun his writing career by the time he graduated from Yale University in 1950. In the decade which followed, Matthiessen co-founded the literary magazine The Paris Review, worked as a commercial fisherman and as captain of a charter fishing boat off Montauk, NY, and worked for the CIA. Besides At Play in the Fields of the Lord, which was nominated for the National Book Award, he has published six other works of fiction, including Far Tortuga and Killing Mister Watson. Mr. Matthiessen's parallel career as a naturalist and explorer has resulted in numerous widely acclaimed books of nonfiction, among them The Tree Where Man Was Born, which was nominated for the National Book Award, and The Snow Leopard, which won it.

In 1999, Howard Norman wrote: "Peter Matthiessen's writing —fiction and nonfiction —does not provide approximations. What it does do with inimitable skill is put a reader at the live heart of life— a powerful, rich sense of immediacy, of being in that moment."

Bibliography:

Shadow Country (2008)

End of the Earth: Voyage to Antarctica (2003)

The Birds of Heaven: Travels With Cranes (2001)

Bone by Bone (1999)

Lost Man's River (1997)

East of Lo Monthang: In the Land of the Mustang (1995)

Killing Mister Watson (1990)

On the River Styx and Other Stories (1989)

Nine-headed Dragon River: Zen Journals 1969-1982 (1986)

The Snow Leopard (1978)

Far Tortuga (1975)

The Tree Where Man Was Born (1972)

Blue Meridian: The Search for the Great White Shark (1971)

The Shorebirds of North America (1967)

At Play in the Fields of the Lord (1965)

Wildlife in America (1959)

Partisans (1955)

Race Rock (1954)

Links:

The Paris Review interview (1999)
BookPage interview (2000)
Current New York Times archive of articles about Matthiessen
Miami Herald review of "Shadow Country" (2008)
Three conversations with Charlie Rose (video) (2008, 2003, 2002)