Matthiessen, Peter

Matthiessen, Peter

(born May 22, 1927, New York, N.Y., U.S.) U.S. naturalist and writer. He attended Yale University and worked as a fisherman on Long Island before undertaking his extensive world travels. His nonfiction, much of it inspired by his career as a naturalist, includes Wildlife in America (1959), The Snow Leopard (1978, National Book Award), and In the Spirit of Crazy Horse (1983). His novels include At Play in the Fields of the Lord (1965; film, 1991), Far Tortuga (1975), and Killing Mister Watson (1990). The Cloud Forest (1996) is a chronicle of his travels in South America.

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Matthiessen, Peter (1927–  ) writer; born in New York City. He studied at the Sorbonne, Paris (1948–49), and at Yale (B.A. 1950). He was a cofounder of the Paris Review (1951) and continued as an editor for the periodical. Long resident in Sagaponack, Long Island, N.Y., he captained a charter fishing boat (1954–56), and was a member of numerous expeditions to Akaska, Canada, Peru, Nepal, East Africa, and New Guinea. His novels, At Play in the Fields of the Lord (1965) and Far Tortuga (1975), as well as short fiction, won critical acclaim, but he was best noted for his nonfiction work, such as The Snow Leopard (1978). In later years he became an eloquent spokesperson for saving the world's natural environments and wildlife.