American writer (1945–2020)
Barry Holstun Lopez (January 6, 1945 – December 25, 2020) was an American author, essayist, nature writer, and fiction writer whose work is known for its humanitarian and environmental concerns. In a career spanning over 50 years, he visited more than 80 countries, and wrote extensively about a variety of landscapes including the Arctic wilderness, exploring the relationship between human cultures and nature. He won the National Book Award for Nonfiction for Arctic Dreams (1986) and his Of Wolves and Men (1978) was a National Book Award finalist.[1] He was a contributor to magazines including Harper's Magazine, National Geographic, and The Paris Review.
Early life
Lopez was born Barry Holstun Brennan on January 6, 1945, in Port Chester, New York,[2][3] to Mary Frances (née Holstun) and John Brennan. His family moved to Reseda, California after the birth of his brother, Dennis, in 1948. He attended grade school at Our Lady of Grace during this time.[4] His parents divorced in 1950, after which his mother married Adrian Bernard Lopez, a businessman, in 1955. Adrian Lopez adopted Barry and his brother, and they both took his surname.[3] Lopez experienced years of sexual abuse as the victim of a serial child molester posing as a doctor who went by the name Harry Shier.[5][6]
When Lopez was 11, his family relocated to Manhattan, where he attended the Loyola School, graduating in 1962.[3] As a young man, Lopez considered becoming a Catholic priest or a Trappist monk[3] before attending the University of Notre Dame, earning undergraduate and graduate degrees there in 1966 and 1968.[3] He also attended New York University and the University of Oregon.[2] Although he drifted away from Catholicism, daily prayer remained important to him as a continuous, respectful attendance to the presence of the Divine.[5]
Career and works
Lopez's essays, short stories, reviews and opinion pieces began to appear in 1966.[7] In his career of over 50 years, he traveled to over 80 countries, writing extensively about distant and exotic landscapes including the Arctic wilderness, exploring the relationships between human cultures and wild nature.[3][8] Through his works, he also highlighted the harm caused by human actions on nature.[9] He was a contributing editor of Harper's Magazine and a contributor to many magazines including National Geographic, The Paris Review, and Outside.[3][10] Until 1981, he was also a landscape photographer.[11] In 2002, he was elected a fellow of The Explorers Club.[12]
Arctic Dreams (1986) describes five years in the Canadian Arctic, where Lopez worked as a biologist.[3][13] Robert Macfarlane, reviewing the book in The Guardian, describes him as "the most important living writer about wilderness".[13] In The New York Times, Michiko Kakutani argued that Arctic Dreams "is a book about the Arctic North in the way that Moby-Dick is a novel about whales".[14]
A number of Lopez's works, including Giving Birth to Thunder, Sleeping with His Daughter (1978), make use of Native American legends, including characters such as Coyote.[15] Crow and Weasel (1990) thematizes the importance of metaphor, which Lopez described in an interview as one of the definitive "passion[s]" of humanity.
James I. McClintock describes Lopez as an admirer of Wendell Berry. McClintock further observes, referring to Arctic Dreams, that Lopez "conjoin[s] ecological science and romantic insight". Slovic identifies "careful structure, euphony, and an abundance of particular details" as central characteristics of Lopez's work.
His final work published during his lifetime was Horizon (2019), an autobiographical telling of his travels over his lifetime.[20] The Guardian describes the book as "a contemporary epic, at once pained and urgent, personal and oracular".[21] A collection of essays, some of which had previously been published and others of which were new to the public, was published posthumously by Penguin Random House under the title Embrace Fearlessly the Burning World (2022), with an introduction by Rebecca Solnit.[22]
An archive of Lopez's manuscripts and other work has been established at Texas Tech University,[23] where he was the university's Visiting Distinguished Scholar.[12][24] He also taught at universities including Columbia University, Eastern Washington University, University of Iowa, and Carleton College, Minnesota.[3]
