Jon Krakauer
Jon Krakauer was born on April 12, 1954, in Brookline, a United States citizen who attended Corvallis High School before going on to Hampshire College. A writer, journalist, mountaineer, and explorer, he has worked throughout his career in the English language, producing nonfiction that draws on both direct experience and sustained reporting.
Krakauer built a body of bestselling nonfiction books across several decades. Into the Wild and Into Thin Air established him as a significant voice in the genre, the latter emerging from his participation in the 1996 Mount Everest expedition — an event that proved to be one of the deadliest disasters in the history of climbing that mountain. He subsequently published Under the Banner of Heaven and Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman, further extending his catalog of nonfiction works. In 2003 he ventured into the field of investigative journalism, adding that dimension to his practice as a writer. His contributions to science journalism brought him the Walter Sullivan Award for Excellence in Science Journalism.
The available record does not specify Krakauer's current location or institutional role, but he remains a working writer and journalist whose career has moved between the physical demands of mountaineering and exploration and the disciplined work of reporting and authorship. The Walter Sullivan Award for Excellence in Science Journalism stands as a documented marker of recognition within that career.
Quotes by Jon Krakauer
Jon Krakauer's insights on:
What makes climbing great for me, strangely enough, is this life-and-death aspect. It sounds trite to say, I know, but climbing isn't just another game. It isn't just another sport. It's life itself. Which is what makes it so compelling and also what makes it so impossible to justify when things go bad.
I guess I don't try to justify climbing or defend it, because I can't. I see climbing as a compulsion that, at its best, is no worse than many other compulsions - golf or stamp collecting or growing world-record pumpkins.
When I write books, I've learned not to have any expectations that I'm going to change the world.
Let's not mince words: Everest doesn't attract a whole lot of well-balanced folks. The self-selection process tends to weed out the cautious and the sensible in favor of those who are single-minded and incredibly driven. Which is a big reason the mountain is so dangerous.
How can you not be a feminist if you have a brain in your head? If you're not a feminist, then you're a problem.
The way Everest is guided is very different from the way other mountains are guided, and it flies in the face of values I hold dear: self-reliance, taking responsibility for what you do, making your own decisions, trusting your judgment - the kind of judgment that comes only through paying your dues, through experience.
When I was 23, I climbed this mountain in Alaska called Devil's Thumb alone. It was incredibly dangerous, and I did it because I thought that if I did something that hard and pulled it off, my life was gonna be transformed. And of course, nothing happened. But I get the search for purpose.
Everest is not real climbing. It's rich people climbing. It's a trophy on the wall, and they're done... When I say I wish I'd never gone, I really mean that.
Why climb? That's a question that baffles me. It perplexes me. I really asked that a lot on Everest. I can't justify it. I can't say it's for a good cause. All I can say is look at the history of exploration: it's full of vainglorious pursuits.