Bestselling Author │ Journalist │ Essayist
A lot of the job of a person
trying to write stories that are true is to make what’s true believable. It
isn’t enough to say, well, it actually happened. You have to make it believable
on the page; you have to bring people to life and scenes to life.
—Tracy Kidder
Over his long career, Kidder’s
writing has been prolific and outstanding. The
Soul of a New Machine—a book celebrated for its insight into the
world of high-tech corporate America—earned
him a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award in 1982. Other bestselling
works include House 
(1985), Among Schoolchildren
(1989), Old Friends (1993) and Home
Town (1999).
His enormously influential book, Mountains
Beyond Mountains, (2003), captures two global health crises, tuberculosis and AIDS,
through the eyes of a single-minded physician bent on improving the health of
some of the poorest people on the planet.
The story of Dr. Paul Farmer, a major force in
revolutionizing international health, is a gripping and inspiring account one
man’s efforts to establish clinics and hospitals—his compassion for the poor,
his inner circle of true believers and, ultimately, his success in helping stem
the tide of new HIV and TB infections in Haiti. Farmer is the founder of Zanmi Lasante (Creole for Partners in Health),
a non-governmental organization that is the only health-care provider in the
Plateau Central in Haiti.
[Mountains Beyond
Mountains] “remind[s] us that we’re implicated in all the problems [Farmer] is
working to solve…His complicated humanity only makes him more like the rest of
us in our shortcomings—and leaves us asking why we all aren’t a little more
like him in our virtues” (Newsweek).
Kidder’s book, My Detachment, is an extraordinary honest account of his experiences as a soldier in Vietnam. Writing for the first time about himself, Kidder presents an unromanticized self-portrait of a young man coming of age in the controversial war that defined a generation.
In his latest release, Strength in What Remains, Kidder delivers the humbling story of Deo, a young man whose will to survive and love of knowledge take him from the horrors of genocide in Burundi to Columbia University and then on to medical school--a brilliant testament to the power of second chances and an inspiring account of one immigrant's remarkable American journey. Dr. Paul Farmer and Partners in Health also play a pivotal role in Deo’s story, as they inspire him to transform the nightmares of his deeply impoverished and war torn country into the dream of establishing his own clinic in Burundi. Strength in What Remains is a finalist for both 2009 The National Book Critics Circle Award and the 2009 Los Angeles Times Book Award.
Born in New
York City in 1945, Kidder spent his childhood in Oyster Bay, Long Island, where his father was a lawyer and his mother
a teacher. He attended Harvard where he earned a BA in 1967. From June 1968 until June 1969, he served as a lieutenant in Vietnam for which he was awarded a Bronze Star.
Following the war, Kidder obtained his MA from the University of Iowa, where he participated in the
Writers’ Workshop, a program known for the literary accomplishments of its
faculty and alumni. It was there that Kidder met Atlantic Monthly Contributing
Editor Dan Wakefield, who helped him get his first assignment for the magazine
as a freelance writer. Kidder’s articles have covered
a broad array of topics, ranging from railroads, to energy, architecture, the
environment among others.
I’m a little suspicious of the
great, overarching view. It always leaves something out. What interests me is
trying to catch the reflection of the human being on the page. I’m interested
in how ordinary people live their lives.
—Tracy Kidder
Tracy Kidder’s writing has appeared in The New Yorker, Granta, The New York Times Book Review and The New York Times OpEd page and he has also written several short works of fiction. Kidder lives with his wife in western Massachusetts and in Maine.
Books
- Strength in What Remains (Random House, 2009)
- My Detachment (Random House, 2005)
- Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World (Random House, 2003)
- Home Town (Random House, 1999)
- Old Friends (Houghton Mifflin, 1993)
- Among Schoolchildren (Houghton Mifflin, 1989)
- House (Houghton Mifflin, 1985)
- The Soul of a New Machine (Little, Brown, 1981)
Awards
1989 Robert F. Kennedy Award Winner for
Among School Children 1982 National Book Award Winner for
Soul of a New Machine 1982 Pulitzer Prize Winner for
Soul of a New Machine Media
To hear an interview with Tracy Kidder on National Public Radio,
click here.
To read Tracy Kidder's most recent OpEd about the plight in Brundi, the home country of the main character in his novel, Strength in What Remains, click here. To read a review of Strength in What Remains in Oprah Magazine, click here.
To learn more about Tracy Kidder's work, visit his website at
www.tracykidder.com