William Finnegan (Author)

William Finnegan (* 1952 in New York City ) is an American journalist and book author.

Life

William Finnegan grew up in Los Angeles and Hawaii , where he also learned to surf .

In 1974 he graduated from the University of California with a bachelor's degree in literature . He later studied creative writing at the University of Montana while doing odd jobs for a living. He traveled through Asia, Australia and Africa for several years before accepting a position as an English teacher at a High School for People of Color in Cape Town , South Africa . This experience inspired him to write his first book Crossing the Line: A Year in the Land of Apartheid , which was published in 1986.

After many years as a foreign reporter for The New Yorker , Finnegan now lives in Manhattan .

Journalistic career

He has been writing articles for The New Yorker magazine since 1984 and has been an editor there since 1987.

In his reports he deals with ethnic conflicts in Africa and Central America, as well as drug crime and poverty in the USA . He has received numerous awards for his journalistic work.

He has also contributed to Harper's Magazine and The New York Review of Books .

author

William Finnegan is the author of several books, particularly non-fiction. In 1998, Cold New World: Growing Up in a Harder Country was published by Random House . It deals with the growing inequality in American society, cultural alienation and exclusion of minorities, as well as the widespread problem of drug addiction in the American lower class.

In 2016, Finnegan's autobiographical book Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life was published , which in the same year received the Pulitzer Prize for biography / autobiography and the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award. In it he describes his many years of passion for surfing, which has shaped him since childhood in Hawaii.

The German translation will be published by Suhrkamp Verlag in spring 2018 under the title Barbarentage .

items

• Deep East Texas , on the cocaine trade in the southern United States.
• The Unwanted , about teenage Nazi groups in California.
• The Invisible War , about the civil war in Sudan.
• The Countertraffickers , report on international trafficking in women.
• Leasing The Rain , on the global struggle for clean drinking water.

Books

• Finnegan, William (2015). Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life. Penguin., ISBN 978-1-59420-347-3
  • German: Barbarentage. Mein Surferleben , Suhrkamp Verlag, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-518-46873-9
• Finnegan, William (2006). Crossing the Line: A Year in the Land of Apartheid. Persea.
• Finnegan, William (1998). Cold New World: Growing Up in a Harder Country. Random House.
• Finnegan, William (1995). Dateline Soweto: Travels with Black South African Reporters. University of California Press.
• Finnegan, William (1993). A Complicated War: The Harrowing of Mozambique. University of California Press.

Reviews

• Review in the New York Times
• Review in The Guardian
• Review in the Independent
• Review in the Los Angeles Times

Web links

• Literature by and about William Finnegan in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/william-finnegan
2. ↑ https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/aug/06/william-finnegan-new-yorker-surfing-memoir
3. ↑ http://inspicio.fiu.edu/video-categories/the-big-kahuna-a-video-chat-with-pulitzer-prize-recipient-william-finnegan/
4. ↑ https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/19/books/review/barbarian-days-a-surfing-life-by-william-finnegan.html?mcubz=3
5. ↑ https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/19/books/review/barbarian-days-a-surfing-life-by-william-finnegan.html?mcubz=3
6. ↑ http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/authors/8702/william-finnegan
7. ↑ https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/william-finnegan
8. ↑ https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/william-finnegan
9. ↑ https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1994/08/22/deep-east-texas
10. ↑ https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1997/12/01/the-unwanted
11. ↑ https://harpers.org/author/williamfinnegan/
12. ↑ http://www.nybooks.com/contributors/william-finnegan/
13. ↑ http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/49713/cold-new-world-by-william-finnegan/9780375753824/