Biographers International Organization

This week we interview the internationally renowned cosmologist Thomas Hertog, who for many years was a close collaborator and mentee of the late Stephen Hawking. His book, On the Origin of Time: Stephen Hawking’s Final Theory, was published by Bantam in April 2023. Hertog currently serves as professor of theoretical physics at Belgium’s University of Leuven, where he studies the quantum nature of the big bang. Thomas Hertog was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member John “Jack” Farrell.

This week we interview Ilyon Woo, the New York Times best-selling author of Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom, published by Simon & Schuster in January 2023. This biography details the story of Ellen and William Craft who escaped slavery through daring, determination, and disguise. Woo also authored The Great Divorce: A Nineteenth-Century Mother’s Extraordinary Fight Against Her Husband, the Shakers, and Her Times, and her articles have appeared in publications such as the Boston Globe and the Wall Street Journal, and she has received support for her research from the National Endowment for the Humanities, among other organizations. Ilyon Woo was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member Kitty Kelley.

This week we feature award-winning journalist and author Caleb Gayle, who writes about the history of race and identity. His latest book, We Refuse to Forget: A True Story of Black Creeks, American Identity and Power (Riverhead Books, June 2023), is about Black members of the indigenous Creek Nation. It was awarded the Matthew Power Literary Reporting Award. Gayle’s writing has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, The Guardian, Guernica, The New Republic, The Boston Globe, and many other publications. He serves as senior fellow at Northeastern University’s Burnes Center for Social Change and holds fellowships from New America, PEN America, and Harvard’s Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. Gayle will be interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member Sonja Williams.                                       

This week we feature biographer and cultural historian Paul Fisher. His most recent award-winning biography, The Grand Affair: John Singer Sargent in His World, was published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in November 2022. Fisher currently serves as an American Studies Professor at Wellesley College; he has also taught at Yale, Wesleyan, Boston University, and Harvard. His group biography, House of Wits: An Intimate Portrait of the James Family (Henry Holt and Co., 2008) was designated a Spectator book of 2008. Fisher was interviewed by BIO member Jennifer Skoog.                         

Wellesley Magazine, Winter 2023, Paul Fisher, April 5, 2022

This week we feature Angela V. John, an historian and biographer from Wales who serves as the president of Llafur, the Welsh People’s History Society. Her latest book, War, Journalism, and the Shaping of the Twentieth Century: The Life and Times of Henry W. Nevinson, was published by Bloomsbury in February of this year. It examines the life of a journalist who has been called the “king” of correspondents. John has served as a history professor at the University of Greenwich in London and is currently an honorary professor at Swansea University. She has published a dozen books; her biographical subjects include the Welsh feminist Lady Rhondda and the American-born actor, writer, and suffragette Elizabeth Robins. John was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member Lisa Napoli.                           

This week we feature Jonathan Eig, former senior writer for The Wall Street Journal and the author of a new biography of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.—King: A Life (Farrar Straus and Giroux, May 2023). Eig is a New York Times bestselling author of five previous books including: Ali: A Life (Mariner Books, 2017); Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig (Simon & Schuster, 2005); and Opening Day: The Story of Jackie Robinson’s First Season (Simon & Schuster, 2007). Ken Burns has praised Eig as “a master storyteller.” His books have been listed among the best of the year by The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Sports Illustrated, and Slate. Eig was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member Kevin McGruder.                            

This week we interview Kerri K. Greenidge, the Mellon Assistant Professor in the Department of Studies in Race, Colonialism, and Diaspora at Tufts University. The author most recently of The Grimkes: The Legacy of Slavery in An American Family (Liveright, November 2022), Greenidge also wrote Black Radical: The Life and Times of William Monroe Trotter (Liveright, 2019), one of The New York Times’ top picks of 2019. She is also the recipient of the Mark Lynton Prize in History, Massachusetts Book Award, J. Anthony Lukas Award, Fordham University’s Sperber Award, and the Peter J. Gomes Book Prize from the Massachusetts Historical Society. Her writing has appeared in the Massachusetts Historical Review, Radical History Review, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and The Guardian. Greenidge is interviewed by BIO member Jennifer Skoog.                  

This week we interview Celia Stahr, author of Frida in America: The Creative Awakening of a Great Artist (St. Martin’s Press, March 2020). This biography of celebrated Mexican artist Frida Kahlo’s formative time during the early 1930s in San Francisco, Detroit, and New York, received many positive reviews in publications such as The New York Times, Art in America, and Booklist. Stahr teaches art history at the University of San Francisco, where she specializes in modern, contemporary, and African art. She is particularly interested in artists who cross cultural boundaries. Stahr will be interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member Lisa Napoli.                      

This week we interview Jonny Steinberg, author of Winnie and Nelson Mandela: Portrait of a Marriage, published by Knopf in May 2023. Steinberg has written several books about everyday life in the wake of South Africa’s transition to democracy, and he is a two-time winner of South Africa’s premier nonfiction award and an inaugural winner of the Donald Windham-Sandy M. Campbell Literature Prize. Steinberg served as professor of African Studies at Oxford University and currently he teaches part-time at Yale and at the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research in Johannesburg. Jonny Steinberg was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member Sonja Williams.                            

This week we interview Sung-Yoon Lee, author of The Sister: The Extraordinary Story of Kim Yo Jong, the Most Powerful Woman in North Korea, published in America by Public Affairs in September of this year. A fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Lee has taught Korean history at the Fletcher School, Tufts University. Sung-Yoon Lee is interviewed by BIO member Jennifer Skoog.