6 minute read
RELATED EVENT Tracy Kidder, Mar 14 (p
in Conversation with Pico Iyer
Tue, Mar 14 / 7:30 PM / The New Vic
Speaking with Pico Series Sponsors: Martha Gabbert, Siri & Bob Marshall, and Laura & Kevin O’Connor
Presented in association with Doctors Without Walls/Santa Barbara Street Medicine, and the following UCSB Departments: Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, and Basic Needs Resources
Tracy Kidder
Over his long career, Kidder’s writing has been prolific and outstanding. The Soul of a New Machine – a book celebrated for its insight into the world of high-tech corporate America – earned him a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award in 1982. Other bestselling works include House, Among Schoolchildren, Old Friends and Home Town.
His enormously influential book Mountains Beyond Mountains captures two global health crises – tuberculosis and AIDS – through the eyes of a single-minded physician bent on improving the health of some of the poorest people on the planet. The story of Dr. Paul Farmer, a major force in revolutionizing international health, is a gripping and inspiring account of one man’s efforts to establish clinics and hospitals – his compassion for the poor, his inner circle of true believers and, ultimately, his success in helping stem the tide of new HIV and TB infections in Haiti.
Farmer was the founder of Zanmi Lasante (Creole for Partners in Health), a non-governmental organization that is the only healthcare provider on the Plateau Central in Haiti.
In his following book, Strength in What Remains, Kidder delivers the humbling story of Deo, a young man whose will to survive and love of knowledge take him from the horrors of genocide in Burundi to Columbia University, and then on to medical school – a brilliant testament to the power of second chances and an inspiring account of one immigrant’s remarkable American journey. Dr. Paul Farmer and Partners in Health also play a pivotal role in Deo’s story, as they inspire him to establish his own clinic in Burundi. Strength in What Remains was a finalist for both the 2009 National Book Critics Circle Award and the 2009 Los Angeles Times Book Award.
Kidder followed that up with Good Prose, a guide to the craft of nonfiction writing, written with his longtime editor Richard Todd; and his recent book, A Truck Full Of Money, the story of tech entrepreneur Paul English, who made millions during the rise of the internet while dealing with bipolar disorder.
Much as he did with Paul Farmer in Mountains Beyond Mountains, Kidder’s recent book, Rough Sleepers, will introduce readers to Dr. Jim O’Connell, who helped create a program to care for Boston’s homeless community. Today, Dr. O’Connell and his colleagues lead an organization that includes clinics affiliated with Massachusetts General Hospital and the Boston Medical Center, and a host of teams including a street team who reach rough sleepers by van. A symptom of the systemic failures that feed American poverty – racism, childhood trauma, violence – homelessness afflicts a broad and diverse population. Kidder spent time over five years riding with Dr. O’Connell as he navigated the city at night, offering medical care, socks, soup, empathy and friendship to some of the city’s endangered citizens. In Rough Sleepers, we meet some of the people Dr. O’Connell has cared for over the years, including Tony, a protector of others
on the streets, and Joann, who spent many years on the streets and now lectures each new Harvard Medical School class. The powerful story of an inspiring doctor who made a difference, Rough Sleepers was released in early 2023.
Born in New York City in 1945, Kidder spent his childhood in Oyster Bay, Long Island, where his father was a lawyer and his mother a teacher. He attended Harvard, where he earned a BA in 1967. From June 1968 until June 1969, he served as a lieutenant in Vietnam, for which he was awarded a Bronze Star, an experience chronicled in his memoir My Detachment.
After the war, Kidder obtained his Master’s degree from the University of Iowa, where he attended the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. It was there that Kidder met Atlantic contributing editor Dan Wakefield, who helped him get his first assignment as a freelance writer.
Over the years, Kidder’s articles have covered a broad array of topics including railroads, energy, architecture and the environment. His writing has appeared in The New Yorker, Granta, The New York Times Book Review and The New York Times.
Pico Iyer
Pico Iyer is the author of 15 books, translated into 23 languages, and dealing with subjects ranging from the XIVth Dalai Lama to Islamic mysticism and from globalism to the Cuban Revolution. They include such long-running sellers as Video Night in Kathmandu, The Lady and the Monk, The Global Soul and The Art of Stillness. He has also written the introductions to more than 70 other books, the liner notes for many Leonard Cohen CDs and Criterion Collection movies and a screenplay for Miramax. Since 1986 he has been a regular essayist for Time, The New York Times, Harper’s, The New York Review of Books and many others.
His four talks for TED have received more than 11 million views so far, and he has been featured in program-length interviews with Oprah, Krista Tippett and Larry King, among others.
Born in Oxford, England in 1957, he was a King’s Scholar at Eton, and was awarded a Congratulatory Double First at Oxford, where he received the highest marks of any student on English Literature at the university. He received a second Master’s degree at Harvard and was recently a Ferris Professor at Princeton. Based since 1987 in western Japan, he travels widely, and his recent book, The Half Known Life, describes experiences in Iran, North Korea, Kashmir, Sri Lanka, Jerusalem and inner Australia.
Books are available for purchase in the lobby and a signing follows the event.
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