Philip Gourevitch
Encyclopedia
Philip Gourevitch an American
author and journalist, is a longtime staff writer for The New Yorker
and the former editor of The Paris Review. His most recent book is The Ballad of Abu Ghraib
(2008), an account of Iraq's Abu Ghraib
prison under the American occupation. Gourevitch has written on a variety of subjects—from ethnic conflicts in Africa
, Europe
and Asia
to political corruption in Rhode Island
and the music of James Brown
. He became widely known for his first book, We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families
(1998), which tells the story of the 1994 Rwandan Genocide
.
, to painter Jacqueline Gourevitch and philosophy professor Victor Gourevitch, a translator of Jean Jacques Rousseau. He and his brother Marc, a physician, spent most of their childhood in Middletown, Connecticut
, where their father taught at Wesleyan University
from 1967 to 1995. Gourevitch graduated from Choate Rosemary Hall
in Wallingford, Connecticut
.
Gourevitch knew that he wanted to be a writer by the time he went to college. He attended Cornell University
. He took a break for three years in order to concentrate fully on writing. He eventually graduated in 1986. In 1992 he received a Masters of Fine Arts in fiction from the Writing Program at Columbia University
. Gourevitch went on to publish some short fiction in literary magazines, before turning to non-fiction.
from 1991 to 1993, first as New York bureau chief and then as Cultural Editor. He left to pursue a career as a freelance writer, publishing articles in numerous magazines, including Granta
, Harper's, The New York Times Magazine
, Outside
, and The New York Review of Books
, before joining The New Yorker
. He has also written for many other magazines and newspapers, and has sat on the board of judges for the PEN/Newman's Own free expression award.
was published in 1998, and it won the National Book Critics Circle Award, the George Polk Book Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Award, the Overseas Press Club's Cornelius Ryan Award
, the New York Public Library's Helen Bernstein Award, and in England, The Guardian First Book Award. Africanist René Lemarchand
states, "That the story of Rwanda is at all known in the United States today owes much to the work of Philip Gourevitch and Alison Des Forges
. He has been described by the British newspaper The Observer
as "the world's leading writer on Rwanda".
, it is about a double homicide in Manhattan that remained unsolved for thirty years. In 2004 Gourevitch was assigned to cover the U.S. Presidential election for The New Yorker
.
, the George Polk Book Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Award, the Overseas Press Club
's Cornelius Ryan Award, the New York Public Library
's Helen Bernstein Award, and in England, The Guardian First Book Award.
His books have been translated into ten foreign languages.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
author and journalist, is a longtime staff writer for The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
and the former editor of The Paris Review. His most recent book is The Ballad of Abu Ghraib
The Ballad of Abu Ghraib
The Ballad of Abu Ghraib is a nonfiction book by American writer Philip Gourevitch. The book originally appeared in hardback under the title Standard Operating Procedure.- External links :* * * *...
(2008), an account of Iraq's Abu Ghraib
Abu Ghraib
The city of Abu Ghraib in the Baghdad Governorate of Iraq is located just west of Baghdad's city center, or northwest of Baghdad International Airport. It has a population of 189,000. The old road to Jordan passes through Abu Ghraib...
prison under the American occupation. Gourevitch has written on a variety of subjects—from ethnic conflicts in Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
, Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
and Asia
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...
to political corruption in Rhode Island
Rhode Island
The state of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, more commonly referred to as Rhode Island , is a state in the New England region of the United States. It is the smallest U.S. state by area...
and the music of James Brown
James Brown
James Joseph Brown was an American singer, songwriter, musician, and recording artist. He is the originator of Funk and is recognized as a major figure in the 20th century popular music for both his vocals and dancing. He has been referred to as "The Godfather of Soul," "Mr...
. He became widely known for his first book, We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families
We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families
We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda is a 1998 non-fiction book about the genocide of 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus in Rwanda in 1994, written by The New Yorker writer Philip Gourevitch....
(1998), which tells the story of the 1994 Rwandan Genocide
Rwandan Genocide
The Rwandan Genocide was the 1994 mass murder of an estimated 800,000 people in the small East African nation of Rwanda. Over the course of approximately 100 days through mid-July, over 500,000 people were killed, according to a Human Rights Watch estimate...
.
Background and education
Gourevitch was born in Philadelphia, PennsylvaniaPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Philadelphia County, with which it is coterminous. The city is located in the Northeastern United States along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. It is the fifth-most-populous city in the United States,...
, to painter Jacqueline Gourevitch and philosophy professor Victor Gourevitch, a translator of Jean Jacques Rousseau. He and his brother Marc, a physician, spent most of their childhood in Middletown, Connecticut
Middletown, Connecticut
Middletown is a city located in Middlesex County, Connecticut, along the Connecticut River, in the central part of the state, 16 miles south of Hartford. In 1650, it was incorporated as a town under its original Indian name, Mattabeseck. It received its present name in 1653. In 1784, the central...
, where their father taught at Wesleyan University
Wesleyan University
Wesleyan University is a private liberal arts college founded in 1831 and located in Middletown, Connecticut. According to the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Wesleyan is the only Baccalaureate College in the nation that emphasizes undergraduate instruction in the arts and...
from 1967 to 1995. Gourevitch graduated from Choate Rosemary Hall
Choate Rosemary Hall
Choate Rosemary Hall is a private, college-preparatory, coeducational boarding school located in Wallingford, Connecticut...
in Wallingford, Connecticut
Wallingford, Connecticut
Wallingford is a town in New Haven County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 43,026 at the 2000 census.- History :Wallingford was established on October 10, 1667, when the Connecticut General Assembly authorized the "making of a village on the east river" to 38 planters and freemen...
.
Gourevitch knew that he wanted to be a writer by the time he went to college. He attended Cornell University
Cornell University
Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...
. He took a break for three years in order to concentrate fully on writing. He eventually graduated in 1986. In 1992 he received a Masters of Fine Arts in fiction from the Writing Program at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
. Gourevitch went on to publish some short fiction in literary magazines, before turning to non-fiction.
New York
Gourevitch worked for The ForwardThe Forward
The Forward , commonly known as The Jewish Daily Forward, is a Jewish-American newspaper published in New York City. The publication began in 1897 as a Yiddish-language daily issued by dissidents from the Socialist Labor Party of Daniel DeLeon...
from 1991 to 1993, first as New York bureau chief and then as Cultural Editor. He left to pursue a career as a freelance writer, publishing articles in numerous magazines, including Granta
Granta
Granta is a literary magazine and publisher in the United Kingdom whose mission centers on its "belief in the power and urgency of the story, both in fiction and non-fiction, and the story’s supreme ability to describe, illuminate and make real." In 2007, The Observer stated, "In its blend of...
, Harper's, The New York Times Magazine
The New York Times Magazine
The New York Times Magazine is a Sunday magazine supplement included with the Sunday edition of The New York Times. It is host to feature articles longer than those typically in the newspaper and has attracted many notable contributors...
, Outside
Outside (magazine)
Outside is an American magazine focused on the outdoors. The first issue debuted in September 1977 with its mission statement declaring that the publication was "dedicated to covering the people, sports and activities, politics, art, literature, and hardware of the outdoors..."Its founders were...
, and The New York Review of Books
The New York Review of Books
The New York Review of Books is a fortnightly magazine with articles on literature, culture and current affairs. Published in New York City, it takes as its point of departure that the discussion of important books is itself an indispensable literary activity...
, before joining The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
. He has also written for many other magazines and newspapers, and has sat on the board of judges for the PEN/Newman's Own free expression award.
Rwanda
Gourevitch became interested in Rwanda in 1994, as he followed news reports of the genocide. Frustrated by his inability to understand the event from afar, he began visiting Rwanda in 1995, and over the next two years made nine trips to the country and to its neighbors (Zaire/Congo, Burundi, Uganda, Tanzania) to report on the genocide and its aftermath. His book We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our FamiliesWe Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families
We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda is a 1998 non-fiction book about the genocide of 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus in Rwanda in 1994, written by The New Yorker writer Philip Gourevitch....
was published in 1998, and it won the National Book Critics Circle Award, the George Polk Book Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Award, the Overseas Press Club's Cornelius Ryan Award
Cornelius Ryan Award
The Cornelius Ryan Award is given for "best nonfiction book on international affairs" by the Overseas Press Club of America . To be eligible for this literary award a book must be published "in the US or by a US based company or distributed for an American audience" during the year prior to that...
, the New York Public Library's Helen Bernstein Award, and in England, The Guardian First Book Award. Africanist René Lemarchand
René Lemarchand
René Lemarchand is a French political scientist who is known for his research on ethnic conflict and genocide in Rwanda, Burundi and Darfur. Publishing in both English and French, he is particularly known for his work on the concept of clientism. He is a Professor Emeritus at the University of...
states, "That the story of Rwanda is at all known in the United States today owes much to the work of Philip Gourevitch and Alison Des Forges
Alison Des Forges
Alison Des Forges was an American historian and human rights activist who specialized in the African Great Lakes region, particularly the 1994 Rwandan Genocide. At the time of her death, she was a senior advisor for the African continent at Human Rights Watch.-Life:Des Forges was born Alison B...
. He has been described by the British newspaper The Observer
The Observer
The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...
as "the world's leading writer on Rwanda".
Campaign journalism
Gourevitch published a second book in 2001. Titled A Cold CaseA Cold Case
A Cold Case is a 2002 novel by Philip Gourevitch. A film adaptation of the novel starring Tom Hanks was attempted, but the project did not enter production.-Plot summary:...
, it is about a double homicide in Manhattan that remained unsolved for thirty years. In 2004 Gourevitch was assigned to cover the U.S. Presidential election for The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
.
The Paris Review
He was named editor of The Paris Review in March 2005 and held that position through March 2010. He is also the editor of The Paris Review Interviews, Volumes I-IV. The first volume, for which he wrote the introduction, was published in 2006.Honors
Gourevitch's work has received numerous awards, including the National Book Critics Circle AwardNational Book Critics Circle Award
The National Book Critics Circle Award is an annual award given by the National Book Critics Circle to promote the finest books and reviews published in English....
, the George Polk Book Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Award, the Overseas Press Club
Overseas Press Club
The Overseas Press Club of America was founded in 1939 in New York City by a group of foreign correspondents. The wire service reporter Carol Weld was a founding member...
's Cornelius Ryan Award, the New York Public Library
New York Public Library
The New York Public Library is the largest public library in North America and is one of the United States' most significant research libraries...
's Helen Bernstein Award, and in England, The Guardian First Book Award.
His books have been translated into ten foreign languages.
Personal
Gourevitch is married to The New Yorker writer Larissa MacFarquhar. He lives in New York City.External links
- Articles by Philip Gourevitch at The New Yorker