Peter Matthiessen (May 22, 1927-April 5, 2014) was an award-winning Author, CIA Agent, and naturalist.
Fun Facts about Peter Matthiessen:
1. Peter Matthiessen was born in New York City to Elizabeth and Erard Matthiessen, Mr. Matthiessen was an architect that help design gunnery training devices during World War II. Later he became and avid neutralist and a spokesman for the Audubon Society.
2. The family was well off, and owned residences in both NYC and Connecticut. Peter Matthiessen loved animals and the environment shaped his future as a wildlife writer.
3. After a brief service in the US Navy, Mr. Matthiessen majored in English at Yale, while also spending his junior year at the Sorbonne in Paris, France. While at Yale, he won the Atlantic Prize for one of his published short stories.
4. Patsy Southgate and Peter Matthiessen married in 1950. The couple had two kids before divorcing six years later. He married Deborah Love and adopted he daughter Rue Matthiessen, a writer in her own right, and had a son Alex. Sadly Deborah Love died of cancer. He married again to Maria Eckhar in 1980.
5. In 1953, Peter Matthiessen co-founded The Paris Review, a prestigious literary magazine, while at the same time working as an undercover CIA agent in Paris. In an interview with Charlie Rose, Mr. Matthiessen flat out said that he “invented The Paris Review as cover”. In 1956 he returned to the United States, living George Plimpton, another co-founder, in charge.
6. Peter Matthiessen is the only writer to win the National Book Award in both the Fiction and Non-Fiction categories. His 2008 book Shadow Country won in the fiction category, while the non-fiction award went to his 1979 novel The Snow Leopard.
7. As an avid naturalist, he visited all seven continents to document endangered species and indigenous cultures. As one can imagine, several of these journeys were not done in comfort. He lived with indigenous tribes in the South American rain forest (you can read about it in his novel At Play in the Fields of the Lord), and was part of an expedition for a shark documentary (Blue Water, White Death).
8. A Zen Buddhist, Mr. Matthiessen became a Buddhist priest in 1973, a year after his second wife died, while on a trip to Nepal.
9. In the Spirit of Crazy Horse, published in 1983, Peter Matthiessen tells of Leonard Peltier who was sentenced for life in prison for the murder of two FBI agents. The book argues that Mr. Peltier, an Native American activist, was framed.
10. Despite the fact that the book was praised for its accuracy Bill Janklow, the former Republican governor of South Dakota sued to have the book taken off the shelves due to an inaccuracy in one paragraph. Separately, an FBI agent filed lawsuit asking for $25 million in damages. Both suites were dismissed but both the author and Viking Press were tied up in litigation for a decade.
Zohar — Man of la Book
*Amazon links point to an affiliate account
Sources:
Peter Matthiessen | Wikipedia
Peter Matthiessen, The Art of Fiction No. 15 | The Paris Review
