John Vaillant
{{short description|American writer and journalist (born 1962)}}
{{Infobox writer
| image = John Vaillant 2015.jpg
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| name = John H. Vaillant
| caption = Vaillant at the 2015 Texas Book Festival
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| birth_date = {{birth year and age|1962}}
| birth_place = Massachusetts, U.S.
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| occupation = Journalist
| nationality = Canadian/American
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}}{{Use dmy dates|date=December 2024}}File:Bookbits - 2010-10-04 John Vaillant-The Tiger.vorb.oga
John Vaillant (born 1962) is an American Canadian writer and journalist whose work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, National Geographic, and Outside. He has written both non-fiction and fiction books.
Personal life
Vaillant was born and raised in Massachusetts and has lived in Vancouver since 1998.[https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/tiger-tale-takes-richest-non-fiction-prize/article1889472/ "Tiger tale takes richest non-fiction prize"]. The Globe and Mail, January 31, 2011. He is the son of Harvard psychiatrist and social scientist George Eman Vaillant, and grandson to the famed archaeologist George Clapp Vaillant. He is married to the potter, writer and anthropologist Nora Walsh.{{Cite web |last=Moreau |first=Vivian |date=2006-06-02 |title=John Vaillant wrote a golden egg of a book |url=https://www.piquenewsmagazine.com/local-arts/john-vaillant-wrote-a-golden-egg-of-a-book-2473040 |access-date=2023-11-15 |website=Pique Newsmagazine |language=en}}
Writing career
Vaillant's first book, The Golden Spruce,{{cite web|title=Review of The Golden Spruce: A True Story of Myth, Madness and Greed by John Vaillant|date=14 February 2005|website=Publishers Weekly|url=https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-393-05887-1}} dealt with the felling of the Golden Spruce or Kiidk'yaas on Haida Gwaii by Grant Hadwin. It was a bestseller and won a number of awards.
In 2010, he published The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival about a man-eating tiger incident that took place in 1997, in Russia's Far Eastern Primorsky Krai, where most of the world's Amur tigers live. It was a bestseller and won a number of awards before being translated into 16 languages. Film rights were optioned by Brad Pitt's film company, Plan B.{{citation needed|date=May 2023}}
In 2015, Vaillant published The Jaguar's Children, a novel about an undocumented Mexican immigrant trapped inside the empty tank of a water truck that has been abandoned in the desert by human smugglers. The novel was longlisted for the Dublin IMPAC Prize and the Kirkus Fiction Prize. It was shortlisted for the 2015 Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize.[https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books-and-media/globe-columnist-among-rogers-writers-trust-fiction-prize-nominees/article26582098/ "Globe columnist among Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize nominees"]. The Globe and Mail, September 29, 2015. The Jaguar's Children received positive reviews from the New York Times and NPR.{{cite news | url = https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/15/books/review/the-jaguars-children-by-john-vaillant.html?_r=0 | title = 'The Jaguar's Children,' by John Vaillant | date= 13 February 2015 | access-date = 9 February 2017 | newspaper = New York Times | author = Amanda Eyre Ward }}{{cite web | url = https://www.npr.org/2015/01/20/378660062/book-review-the-jaguars-children-by-john-vaillant | title = 'The Jaguar's Children' Is Ripped From Heartbreaking Headlines | date= 20 January 2015 | access-date = 9 February 2017 | publisher = NPR | author = Alan Cheuse }}
Vaillant's fourth book, Fire Weather: The Making of a Beast,{{cite web|title=Fire Weather: The Making of a Beast by John Vaillant|date=23 May 2023|website=Penguin Random House|url=https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/739360/fire-weather-by-john-vaillant/9780735273160}} was published in 2023. It follows the events and aftermath of the 2016 Fort McMurray wildfire, which caused billions of dollars worth of damage and destroyed around 2400 homes and forced the evacuation of over 80,000 people,{{cite news|url=https://globalnews.ca/news/2679178/fort-mcmurray-wildfire-how-many-homes-have-been-lost-in-the-fire/|title=Fort McMurray wildfire: Shifting weather forces more evacuations|date=4 May 2016|access-date=31 May 2023|newspaper = Global News|author=Karen Bartko & Emily Mertz}} and describes the anthropological history between humans and fire, how it has shaped our societies, and how it now threatens them in the context of climate change.{{cite web|title=Fire Weather: The Making of a Beast by John Vaillant|date=23 May 2023|website=Penguin Random House|url=https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/739360/fire-weather-by-john-vaillant/9780735273160}} Fire Weather came out June 6, 2023, which opinion writer David Wallace-Wells of The New York Times said was, “unfortunately, exquisitely timed.”{{cite news| work=The New York Times| url=https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/07/opinion/smoke-air-quality-new-york-canada.html | last=Wallace-Wells| first=David | title=As Smoke Darkens the Sky, the Future Becomes Clear| date=June 7, 2023| access-date=June 7, 2023}} The book’s release coincided with the start of several days of hazardous smoke levels and a thick yellowish haze across the eastern United States due to profuse smoke plumes from Canadian wildfires that drifted south. Fire Weather was longlisted for the 2023 National Book Award for Nonfiction,{{cite news |title=2023 National Book Awards Finalist for Nonfiction |url=https://www.nationalbook.org/2023-national-book-awards-finalists-announced/}} and shortlisted for the 2023 Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction.Brad Wheeler, [https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books/article-shortlist-for-75000-hilary-weston-writers-trust-prize-for-nonfiction/ "Shortlist for $75,000 Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction includes past winner John Vaillant, scholar Christina Sharpe"]. The Globe and Mail, September 20, 2023. It was awarded Britain's £50,000 Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction in November 2023.{{cite news |last1=Creamer |first1=Ella |title=John Vaillant wins Baillie Gifford nonfiction prize with ‘highly relevant’ work on wildfires |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/nov/16/john-vailliant-wins-baillie-gifford-nonfiction-prize-with-highly-relevant-work-on-wildfires |access-date=19 November 2023 |publisher=The Guardian |date=17 November 2023}}
Awards and honors
- 2005 Governor General's Award, The Golden Spruce
- 2005 Writers' Trust Non-Fiction Prize, The Golden Spruce
- 2010 British Columbia's National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction, The Tiger[https://www.straight.com/article-371007/vancouver/john-vaillants-tiger-wins-bcs-national-award-canadian-nonfiction "John Vaillant's The Tiger wins B.C.'s National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110308204546/http://www.straight.com/article-371007/vancouver/john-vaillants-tiger-wins-bcs-national-award-canadian-nonfiction |date=2011-03-08 }}. The Georgia Straight, February 1, 2010.
- 2010 The Globe and Mail Best Book for Science 2010, The Tiger
- 2012 Nicolas Bouvier Prize in Saint Malo, France, The Tiger (French translation)
- 2014 Windham–Campbell Literature Prize in Nonfiction, achievement award valued at $150,000 the largest of its kind.{{cite web |url=http://windhamcampbell.org/2014/winner/john-vaillant |title=Prize Citation for John Vaillant |publisher=Windham–Campbell Literature Prize |date=March 7, 2014 |access-date=March 8, 2014 |archive-date=March 8, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140308081025/http://windhamcampbell.org/2014/winner/john-vaillant |url-status=dead }}
- 2022 GQ - The 50 Best Books of Literary Journalism of the 21st Century, The Tiger
- 2023 Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction, Fire Weather
- 2023 Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction finalist for Fire Weather
- 2023 National Book Award for Nonfiction finalist for Fire Weather{{Cite web |date=2023-10-05 |title=National Book Award finalists announced |url=https://www.booksandpublishing.com.au/articles/2023/10/05/238866/national-book-award-finalists-announced-3/ |access-date=2023-11-20 |publisher=Books+Publishing}}
Bibliography
Vaillant is the author of four books:
- {{Cite book |title=Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World |publisher=Knopf |year=2023 |isbn=9781524732851}}
- {{cite book | title=The Jaguar's Children | publisher=Houghton Mifflin Harcourt | year=2015 | isbn=978-0544315495 | url=https://archive.org/details/jaguarschildren0000vail }}
- {{cite book | title=The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival | publisher=Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. | year=2010 | isbn=978-0307268938 | url=https://archive.org/details/tigertruestoryof00vail }}
- {{cite book | title=The Golden Spruce: A True Story of Myth, Madness, and Greed | publisher=W. W. Norton & Company | year=2005 | isbn=978-0393058871 | url=https://archive.org/details/goldenspruce00john }}
References
{{Reflist|2}}
External links
- {{LCAuth|n2005003631|John Vaillant|4|ue}}
{{Governor General's English non-fiction|state=collapsed}}
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Category:21st-century American novelists
Category:21st-century American non-fiction writers
Category:21st-century American male writers
Category:21st-century Canadian novelists
Category:21st-century Canadian non-fiction writers
Category:21st-century Canadian male writers
Category:American male non-fiction writers
Category:American male novelists
Category:Canadian male non-fiction writers
Category:Canadian male novelists
Category:Writers from Cambridge, Massachusetts
Category:Writers from Vancouver
Category:Governor General's Award–winning non-fiction writers