Philip Gourevitch

Last updated
Philip Gourevitch
Philip Gourevitch (credit Andrew Brucker)5x7.jpg
Born1961 (age 6162)
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
NationalityAmerican
Education Choate Rosemary Hall
Alma mater Cornell University
Columbia University
Occupation(s)Author, journalist
Notable work We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families (1998)
Spouse Larissa MacFarquhar

Philip Gourevitch (born 1961), an American author and journalist, is a longtime staff writer for The New Yorker and a former editor of The Paris Review .

Contents

His most recent book is The Ballad of Abu Ghraib (2008), an account of Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison under the American occupation. 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.

Background and education

Gourevitch was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 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 Cornell University. He took a break for three years in order to concentrate fully on writing before eventually graduating 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.

Career

Gourevitch at a 2008 book signing in Austin, Texas Philip Gourevitch 2008, cropped.jpg
Gourevitch at a 2008 book signing in Austin, Texas

New York

Gourevitch worked for The Forward 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.

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, Burundi, Uganda, Tanzania) to report on the genocide and its aftermath. [1]

External video
Nuvola apps kaboodle.svg Booknotes interview with Gourevitch on We Wish to Inform You, November 22, 1998, C-SPAN
Nuvola apps kaboodle.svg Presentation by Gourevitch on A Cold Case, August 14, 2001, C-SPAN

His book We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families 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, the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for First Nonfiction, and in England, The Guardian First Book Award. [2] Africanist René Lemarchand stated, "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. [3] He has been described by the British newspaper The Observer as "the world's leading writer on Rwanda". [1]

Campaign journalism

Gourevitch published a second book in 2001. Titled A Cold Case, it is about a double homicide in Manhattan that remained unsolved for 30 years. In 2004 Gourevitch was assigned to cover the 2004 U.S. presidential election for The New Yorker .

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 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. In 2017, he was awarded a Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant to complete his book You Hide That You Hate Me And I Hide That I Know. [4] His books have been translated into ten languages.

Personal life

Gourevitch is married to The New Yorker writer Larissa MacFarquhar. He lives in New York City.

Bibliography

Books

Essays and reporting

Related Research Articles

<i>We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families</i> 1998 non-fiction book by Philip Gourevitch

We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda is a 1998 non-fiction book by The New Yorker writer Philip Gourevitch about the 1994 Rwandan genocide, in which an estimated 1,000,000 Tutsis and Hutus were killed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">George Packer</span> American journalist and writer

George Packer is a US journalist, novelist, and playwright. He is best known for his writings for The New Yorker and The Atlantic about U.S. foreign policy and for his book The Assassins' Gate: America in Iraq. Packer also wrote The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America, covering the history of the US from 1978 to 2012. In November 2013, The Unwinding received the National Book Award for Nonfiction. His award-winning biography, Our Man: Richard Holbrooke and the End of the American Century, was released in May 2019. His latest book, Last Best Hope: America in Crisis and Renewal was released in June 2021.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lynndie England</span> United States Army soldier convicted of abusing Iraqi prisoners

Lynndie Rana England is a former United States Army Reserve soldier who was prosecuted for mistreating detainees during the Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse that occurred at the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad during the Iraq War. She was one of 11 military personnel from the 372nd Military Police Company who were convicted in 2005 for war crimes. After being sentenced to three years in prison and a dishonorable discharge, England was incarcerated from September 27, 2005, to March 1, 2007, when she was released on parole.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sabrina Harman</span> Soldier convicted of prisoner abuse

Sabrina D. Harman is an American former soldier who was court-martialed by the United States Army for prisoner abuse after the 2003–2004 Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal. Along with other soldiers of her Army Reserve unit, the 372nd Military Police Company, she was accused of allowing and inflicting physical and psychological abuse on Iraqi detainees in Abu Ghraib prison, a notorious prison in Baghdad during the United States' occupation of Iraq.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rwanda Nziza</span> National anthem of Rwanda

"Rwanda Nziza" has been the national anthem of Rwanda since January 1, 2002. It replaced "Rwanda Rwacu", which had been the national anthem since 1962.

<i>The Paris Review</i> New York-based English-language literary magazine

The Paris Review is a quarterly English-language literary magazine established in Paris in 1953 by Harold L. Humes, Peter Matthiessen, and George Plimpton. In its first five years, The Paris Review published works by Jack Kerouac, Philip Larkin, V. S. Naipaul, Philip Roth, Terry Southern, Adrienne Rich, Italo Calvino, Samuel Beckett, Nadine Gordimer, Jean Genet, and Robert Bly.

Elizaphan Ntakirutimana was a pastor of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Rwanda and was the first clergyman to be convicted for a role in the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bibliography of the Rwandan genocide</span>

This is a bibliography for primary sources, books and articles on the personal and general accounts, and the accountabilities, of the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Republican Rally for Democracy in Rwanda</span> Political party

The Republican Rally for Democracy in Rwanda, also known as the Rassemblement Démocratique pour la Retour is an unregistered Rwandan political party. Its stated goal is to establish a democratic and free Rwandan Republic, and its current president is Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza.

The Guardian First Book Award was a literary award presented by The Guardian newspaper. It annually recognised one book by a new writer. It was established in 1999, replacing the Guardian Fiction Award or Guardian Fiction Prize that the newspaper had sponsored from 1965. The Guardian First Book Award was discontinued in 2016, with the 2015 awards being the last.

Agathe Kanziga Habyarimana, néeKanziga is the widow of former President of Rwanda Juvénal Habyarimana and former First Lady of Rwanda from 1973 until 1994. Kanziga is part of a Hutu lineage that long ruled an independent principality until the late nineteenth century. She was arrested by French authorities on 2 March 2010 in France following the French President Nicolas Sarkozy's visit to Rwanda.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Jeremiah Sullivan</span> American writer, musician, teacher, and editor

John Jeremiah Sullivan is an American writer, musician, teacher, and editor. He is a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine, a contributing editor of Harper's Magazine, and the southern editor of The Paris Review. In 2014, he edited TheBest American Essays, a collection in which his work has been featured in previous years. He has also served on the faculty of Columbia University, Sewanee: The University of the South, and other institutions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kigeli IV Rwabugiri</span> Mwami of Rwanda

Kigeli IV Rwabugiri was the king (mwami) of the Kingdom of Rwanda in the mid-nineteenth century. He was among the last Nyiginya kings in a ruling dynasty that had traced their lineage back four centuries to Gihanga, the first 'historical' king of Rwanda whose exploits are celebrated in oral chronicles. He was a Tutsi with the birth name Sezisoni Rwabugiri. He was the first king in Rwanda's history to come into contact with Europeans. He established an army equipped with guns he obtained from Germans and prohibited most foreigners, especially Arabs, from entering his kingdom.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alexander Chee</span> American writer

Alexander Chee is an American fiction writer, poet, journalist and reviewer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Assassination of Juvénal Habyarimana and Cyprien Ntaryamira</span> 1994 shootdown in Kigali, Rwanda

On the evening of 6 April 1994, the aircraft carrying Rwandan president Juvénal Habyarimana and Burundian president Cyprien Ntaryamira, both Hutu, was shot down with surface-to-air missiles as their jet prepared to land in Kigali, Rwanda; both were killed. The assassination set in motion the Rwandan genocide, one of the bloodiest events of the late 20th century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alison Des Forges</span> American historian and human rights activist

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. She died in a plane crash on 12 February 2009.

<i>The Ballad of Abu Ghraib</i> 2008 Non-fiction Book by Philip Gourevitch

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.

Rwandan genocide denial is the assertion that the Rwandan genocide did not occur, specifically rejection of the scholarly consensus that Rwandan Tutsis were the victims of a genocide between 7 April and 15 July 1994. The perpetrators, a small minority of other Hutu, and a fringe of Western writers dispute that reality.

Anjan Sundaram is an Indian author, journalist, academic, and television presenter. He is the author of three memoirs of journalism, Stringer, Bad News and Breakup, and has been called "one of the great reporters of our age" by the BBC foreign correspondent Fergal Keane.

Brigid Hughes is a New York City-based literary editor. Hughes is best known for succeeding George Plimpton as the editor of the literary magazine The Paris Review after his death in 2003 and for founding the literary magazine A Public Space in 2006.

References

  1. 1 2 Gourevitch, Philip (2009-11-08). "Rwanda: Will the truce hold?". The Observer . London. Retrieved 2009-11-08.[ dead link ]
  2. "Guardian First Book Award 1999". The Guardian . London. Retrieved 2010-04-15.
  3. Lemarchand, René (2009). The Dynamics of Violence in Central Africa. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN   978-0-8122-4120-4.
  4. "2017 Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grantee: Philip Gourevitch". Whiting.org. Archived from the original on 25 January 2018. Retrieved 24 January 2018.
  5. Reprinted in paperback as Gourevitch, Philip; Errol Morris (2009). The Ballad of Abu Ghraib . Penguin.