Peter Matthiessen (born May 22, 1927, in
New York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States, and the center of the New York metropolitan area, which is among the most populous urban areas in the world. A leading global city, New York exerts a powerful influence over worldwide commerce, finance, culture, fashion and entertainment...
) is a two-time
National Book AwardThe National Book Awards are among the most eminent literary prizes in the United States. Started in 1950, the awards are presented annually to American authors for literature published in the prior year, as well as lifetime achievement awards including the "Medal of Distinguished Contribution to...
-winning
AmericanThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
novelist and nonfiction writer as well as an environmental activist. He frequently focuses on
American IndianNative Americans in the United States is the phrase that describes indigenous peoples from North America now encompassed by the continental United States, including parts of Alaska and the island state of Hawaii. They comprise a large number of distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of...
issues and history, as in his detailed study of the
Leonard PeltierLeonard Peltier is an American activist and member of the American Indian Movement who was convicted and sentenced in 1977 to two consecutive terms of life imprisonment for the murder of two Federal Bureau of Investigation agents who were killed during a 1975 shootout on the Pine Ridge Indian...
case,
In the Spirit of Crazy Horse. In November 2008, at age 81, he received his second National Book Award for
Shadow CountryShadow Country is a novel by Peter Matthiessen published in 2008 by Random House.Shadow Country is actually a trilogy of books about Florida sugar cane planter and outlaw Edgar Watson all collected in one volume, re-edited, and retitled...
, an 890-page revision of a trilogy of novels he released in the 1990s.
Peter Matthiessen (born May 22, 1927, in
New York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States, and the center of the New York metropolitan area, which is among the most populous urban areas in the world. A leading global city, New York exerts a powerful influence over worldwide commerce, finance, culture, fashion and entertainment...
) is a two-time
National Book AwardThe National Book Awards are among the most eminent literary prizes in the United States. Started in 1950, the awards are presented annually to American authors for literature published in the prior year, as well as lifetime achievement awards including the "Medal of Distinguished Contribution to...
-winning
AmericanThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
novelist and nonfiction writer as well as an environmental activist. He frequently focuses on
American IndianNative Americans in the United States is the phrase that describes indigenous peoples from North America now encompassed by the continental United States, including parts of Alaska and the island state of Hawaii. They comprise a large number of distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of...
issues and history, as in his detailed study of the
Leonard PeltierLeonard Peltier is an American activist and member of the American Indian Movement who was convicted and sentenced in 1977 to two consecutive terms of life imprisonment for the murder of two Federal Bureau of Investigation agents who were killed during a 1975 shootout on the Pine Ridge Indian...
case,
In the Spirit of Crazy Horse. In November 2008, at age 81, he received his second National Book Award for
Shadow CountryShadow Country is a novel by Peter Matthiessen published in 2008 by Random House.Shadow Country is actually a trilogy of books about Florida sugar cane planter and outlaw Edgar Watson all collected in one volume, re-edited, and retitled...
, an 890-page revision of a trilogy of novels he released in the 1990s. His first National Book Award was won in 1980 for
The Snow LeopardThe Snow Leopard is a 1978 book by Peter Matthiessen, which is an account of his two month journey along with naturalist George Schaller in 1973 to Crystal Mountain, in the Dolpo region on the Tibetan Plateau in the Himalayas.- Awards and acclaim :...
. His story
Travelin' Man was adapted into the film
The Young OneLa joven is a film, directed by Luis Buñuel and currently available on the Buñuel DVD collection released in 2007, after being out of distribution for many years...
by
Luis BuñuelLuis Buñuel Portolés was a Spanish-born filmmaker who acquired Mexican citizenship and worked in Mexico, France, and also in his native Spain and the United States...
.
Career
Along with
George PlimptonGeorge Ames Plimpton was an American journalist, writer, editor, and actor. He is best-remembered for his sports writing and for founding The Paris Review.- Biography :...
,
Harold L. HumesHarold Louis Humes, Jr. was known as HL Humes in his books, and usually as "Doc" Humes in life. He was the originator of The Paris Review literary magazine, author of two novels in the late fifties, and a gregarious fixture of the cultural scene in Paris, London, and New York in the 1950s and...
, Thomas Guinzburg and
Donald HallDonald Hall is an American poet. He was appointed Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 2006.-Early years:...
, Matthiessen founded the literary magazine
The Paris Review in 1953. At the time he was a young recruit for the
CIAThe Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government.It is an independent agency responsible for providing national security intelligence to senior United States policymakers....
.
In 1965, Matthiessen wrote a novel about a group of American missionaries and a South American tribe. The book was later made into a major Hollywood film with the same title,
At Play in the Fields of the LordAt Play in the Fields of the Lord is a drama film directed by Hector Babenco adapted from the 1965 novel of the same name by American author Peter Matthiessen. The screenplay was written by Babenco and Jean-Claude Carrière...
, in 1991. In 1979, Matthiessen's nonfiction book
The Snow Leopard won the Contemporary Thought category of the
National Book AwardThe National Book Awards are among the most eminent literary prizes in the United States. Started in 1950, the awards are presented annually to American authors for literature published in the prior year, as well as lifetime achievement awards including the "Medal of Distinguished Contribution to...
. His work on oceanographic research, "Blue Meridian," with photographer Peter A. Lake, documented the making of the film "Blue Water, White Death," which was directed by
Peter GimbelPeter R. Gimbel , was an American filmmaker and underwater photojournalist.Born in New York City, Peter was the son of Bernard Gimbel and heir to the Gimbels department store chain. After serving in the United States Army occupation force in Japan in 1946-1947, he graduated from Yale University in...
and Jim Lipscomb. This is widely considered to have inspired
Peter BenchleyPeter Bradford Benchley was an American author, best known for his novel Jaws and its subsequent film adaptation, the latter co-written by Benchley and directed by Steven Spielberg...
to write
Jaws in 1974. Matthiessen has been the official State Author of New York, 1995-1997.
In 2008, Matthiessen's fiction trilogy
Killing Mr. Watson,
Lost Man's River and
Bone by Bone, based on accounts of
FloridaFlorida is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States, bordering Alabama to the northwest and Georgia to the north. It was the 27th state admitted to the United States...
planter Edgar J. Watson's death shortly after the
Southwest Florida Hurricane of 1910The 1910 Atlantic hurricane season ran through the summer and the first half of fall in 1910. The season was fairly inactive, with only five storms forming during the season. The season got off to a late start.-Tropical Storm One:...
, was reformatted into a single volume entitled
Shadow CountryShadow Country is a novel by Peter Matthiessen published in 2008 by Random House.Shadow Country is actually a trilogy of books about Florida sugar cane planter and outlaw Edgar Watson all collected in one volume, re-edited, and retitled...
. The book won the 2008
National Book AwardThe National Book Awards are among the most eminent literary prizes in the United States. Started in 1950, the awards are presented annually to American authors for literature published in the prior year, as well as lifetime achievement awards including the "Medal of Distinguished Contribution to...
.
Crazy Horse lawsuits
Shortly after the 1983 publication of
In The Spirit of Crazy Horse, Matthiessen and his publisher Viking Penguin were sued for libel by FBI agent David Price and former South Dakota governor William J. Janklow. The plaintiffs sought over $49 million in damages; Janklow also successfully sued to have all copies of the book withdrawn from bookstores.
After four years of litigation, Federal District Court Judge
Diana E. MurphyDiana E. Murphy born in 1934, is a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.- Career :She was nominated to that post by President Bill Clinton in 1994 and confirmed by the Senate. Prior to being elevated to the Court of Appeals she was a federal district judge for the...
dismissed Price's lawsuit, upholding Matthiessen's right "to publish an entirely one-sided view of people and events." In the Janklow case, a South Dakota court also ruled for Matthiessen. Both cases were appealed. In 1990, the
Supreme CourtThe Supreme Court of the United States is the highest judicial body in the United States, and leads the federal judiciary. It consists of the Chief Justice of the United States and eight Associate Justices, who are nominated by the President and confirmed with the "advice and consent" of the Senate...
refused to hear Price's arguments, effectively ending his appeal; the South Dakota Supreme Court dismissed Janklow's case the same year. With the lawsuits settled, the paperback edition of the book was finally published in 1992.
Personal life
In his book
The Snow Leopard, Matthiessen reports having a somewhat tempestuous on-again off-again relationship with his wife Deborah, culminating in a deep commitment to each other made shortly before she was diagnosed with cancer. She died in
New York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States, and the center of the New York metropolitan area, which is among the most populous urban areas in the world. A leading global city, New York exerts a powerful influence over worldwide commerce, finance, culture, fashion and entertainment...
near the end of 1972. She and Matthiessen had four children; the youngest of them,
Alex MatthiessenAlex Matthiessen has been the Hudson River Riverkeeper and President of Riverkeeper, Inc. since July 2000. He is the son of author and naturalist Peter Matthiessen.-Biography:...
, was 7 or 8 years old at the time of her death. In September of the following year, Matthiessen went on an expedition to the
HimalayasThe Himalaya Range or Himalayas for short , meaning "abode of snow", is a mountain range in Asia, separating the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau...
with field biologist
George SchallerGeorge Beals Schaller is an American mammalogist, naturalist, conservationist and author. Schaller is recognized by many as the world's preeminent field biologist, studying wildlife throughout Africa, Asia and South America. Born in Berlin, Schaller grew up in Germany, but moved to Missouri as a...
.
Matthiessen and Deborah practiced
Zen BuddhismZen is a school of Mahāyāna Buddhism, translated from the Chinese word Chán. This word is in turn derived from the Sanskrit dhyāna, which means "meditation" ....
. Matthiessen later became a Buddhist priest of the
White Plum AsangaWhite Plum Asanga, sometimes termed White Plum Sangha, is the lineage of the late Hakuyu Taizan Maezumi, using a synthesis of Soto and Rinzai and consisting of Maezumi's Dharma heirs and many of their subsequent successors and students...
. He lives in
Sagaponack, New YorkSagaponack is a village in the town of Southampton in Suffolk County, New York, United States. The village incorporated on September 2, 2005, in the wake of the failed attempt by Dunehampton, New York to incorporate. Dunehampton's incorporation would have blocked Sagaponack from Atlantic Ocean...
.
Awards
- 1980 National Book Award for General Non-Fiction, for The Snow Leopard
- The 6th Annual Heinz Award
The Heinz Award is an award administered annually to five honorees by the Heinz Family Foundation. The Heinz Awards recognize outstanding individuals for their contributions in the five areas of: Arts and Humanities, the Environment, the Human Condition, Public Policy, and Technology, the Economy...
in the Arts and Humanities (2000)
- 2008 National Book Award for Fiction, for Shadow Country
Fiction
- Race Rock (1954)
- Partisans (1955)
- Raditzer (1961)
- At Play in the Fields of the Lord
At Play in the Fields of the Lord is a 1965 novel by Peter Matthiessen. A film of the same name was made in 1991....
(1965)
- Far Tortuga (1975)
- On the River Styx and Other Stories (1989)
- Killing Mister Watson (1990)
- Lost Man's River (1997)
- Bone by Bone (1999)
- Shadow Country
Shadow Country is a novel by Peter Matthiessen published in 2008 by Random House.Shadow Country is actually a trilogy of books about Florida sugar cane planter and outlaw Edgar Watson all collected in one volume, re-edited, and retitled...
(2008) (a new rendering of the Watson trilogy)
Nonfiction
- Wildlife in America (1959)
- The Cloud Forest: A Chronicle of the South American Wilderness (1961)
- Under the Mountain Wall: A Chronicle of Two Seasons in the Stone Age (1962)
- "The Atlantic Coast", a chapter in The American Heritage Book of Natural Wonders (1963)
- The Shorebirds of North America (1967)
- Oomingmak (1967)
- Sal Si Puedes: Cesar Chavez and the New American Revolution (1969)
- Blue Meridian. The Search for the Great White Shark (1971).
- The Tree Where Man Was Born (1972)
- The Snow Leopard
The Snow Leopard is a 1978 book by Peter Matthiessen, which is an account of his two month journey along with naturalist George Schaller in 1973 to Crystal Mountain, in the Dolpo region on the Tibetan Plateau in the Himalayas.- Awards and acclaim :...
(1978)
- Sand Rivers (1981)
- In the Spirit of Crazy Horse (1983) ISBN 0-14-014456-0
- Indian Country (1984)
- Nine-headed Dragon River: Zen Journals 1969-1982 (1986)
- Men's Lives: The Surfmen and Baymen of the South Fork (1986)
- African Silences(1991)
- Baikal: Sacred Sea of Siberia (1992)
- East of Lo Monthang: In the Land of the Mustang (1995)
- The Peter Matthiessen Reader: Nonfiction, 1959-1961 (2000)
- Tigers in the Snow (2000)
- The Birds of Heaven: Travels With Cranes (2001)
- End of the Earth: Voyage to Antarctica (2003)
External links