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Tracy Kidder Biography, Books, and Similar Authors

Author Biography  | Interview  | Books by this Author  | Read-Alikes

Tracy Kidder

Tracy Kidder

Tracy Kidder Biography

Tracy Kidder graduated from Harvard and studied at the University of Iowa. He has won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, the Robert F. Kennedy Award, and many other literary prizes. His books include The Soul of a New Machine, House, Among Schoolchildren, Old Friends, Home Town, Mountains Beyond Mountains, My Detachment, Strength in What Remains, and (with Richard Todd) Good Prose. Kidder lives in Massachusetts and Maine.

Tracy Kidder's website

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Interview

In two separate interviews, one video, one text, Tracy Kidder talks about writing Strength in What Remains and Mountains Beyond Mountains.



A Conversation with Tracy Kidder, author of Mountain Beyond Mountains

How did you meet Paul Farmer, and what made you want to write about him?
I met him in Haiti in 1994. I was doing a story on American soldiers sent there to reinstate the country’s democratically elected government. Farmer showed up one night at the barracks and got into an argument with the commander. I wasn’t very interested in him then, but a few weeks later I ran into him on the plane to Miami and I began to learn some of the outlines of his life, which I found very interesting. Farmer was the second of six children, and spent most of his childhood in Florida, the whole family living on a bus and a houseboat that was moored in a bayou on the Gulf Coast. He went to Duke on a full scholarship, and then, while he was earning his M.D. and Ph.D at Harvard, he conceived and helped to build an amazing health care system in one of the poorest corners of Haiti. Around the time when I met him, he and his small band of colleagues were about to go to war against the dominant ideologies in international health — eventually they’d actually win some significant battles.

And I was drawn to the man himself. He worked ...

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Books by this Author

Books by Tracy Kidder at BookBrowse
Rough Sleepers jacket A Truck Full of Money jacket Good Prose jacket Strength in What Remains jacket
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Read-Alikes

All the books below are recommended as read-alikes for Tracy Kidder but some maybe more relevant to you than others depending on which books by the author you have read and enjoyed. So look for the suggested read-alikes by title linked on the right.
How we choose read-alikes

  • Izzeldin Abuelaish

    Izzeldin Abuelaish

    Izzeldin Abuelaish, MD, MPH, is a Palestinian physician and infertility expert who was born and raised in the Jabalia refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. He received a scholarship to study medicine in Cairo, and then received a ... (more)

    If you enjoyed:
    Mountains Beyond Mountains

    Try:
    I Shall Not Hate
    by Izzeldin Abuelaish

  • Uwem Akpan

    Uwem Akpan

    Uwem Akpan was born in Ikot Akpan Eda in southern Nigeria. After studying philosophy and English at Creighton and Gonzaga universities, he studied theology for three years at the Catholic University of Eastern Africa. He was ... (more)

    If you enjoyed:
    Strength in What Remains

    Try:
    Say You're One of Them
    by Uwem Akpan

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