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CURRICULUM
VITAE
ABOUT
ALEX SHOUMATOFF
Alex Shoumatoff was born in Mt. Kisco, New York, on November 4, l946.
After graduating from Harvard College in l968, he worked on the Washington
Post, as a singer-songwriter, and as the resident naturalist at a wildlife
sanctuary in Westchester County. His first book, Florida Ramble, was published
in l974 (Harper and Row, Vintage paperback). In the fall of l976 he spent
nine months in the Amazon researching a Sierra Club book, The Rivers Amazon
(Sierra Club l978, hard and soft), which has been compared to the
classics of Roosevelt and Bates. His next book, Westchester : Portrait
of a County (Coward, McCann, and Geoghegan, 1979, Vintage paperback), was
excerpted in the New Yorker, for whom Shoumatoff became a staff writer
in l979. There, under Robert Bingham, the editor of John McPhee and
Peter Mathiessen, and later under John Bennet, he wrote long fact pieces
that were then developed as books : The Capital of Hope (Coward McCann,
and Geoghegan, 1980, Vintage paperback, about the building of Brasilia),
Russian Blood (Coward, McCann, and Geoghegan, l982, Vintage paperback,
a chronicle of his own family from the dawn of Russian history through
the October Revolution and emigration to the United States ), The Mountain
of Names (Simon and Schuster, l984, Touchstone, Vintage, and Kodansha paperbacks,
a profile of the Mormons' Genealogical Society of Utah that became a history
of the human family), In Southern Light (Simon and Schuster, l986, Touchstone
and Vintage paperbacks, about a two-month journey in Zaire
and a trip up the remote Amazonian tributary where the Amazon women are
supposed to have lived). He was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in l985.
In l986 Shoumatoff wrote a profile of Dian Fossey for the newly resurrected
Vanity Fair that was made into the movie, Gorillas in the Mist and was
collected in African Madness (Knopf l988, Vintage paperback, also containing
pieces on Emperor Bokassa, the natural history of Madagascar, and
AIDS in Africa). He covered ousted dictators for Vanity Fair (Stroessner,
Mengistu,
Mobutu) and wrote a seminal piece on Tibet and the Dalai Lama. His
l989 piece about Chico Mendes, the murdered leader of the Amazon's rubber
tappers, was optioned by Robert Redford and expanded into The World is
Burning (Little Brown, l990, Avon paperback, published in ten languages).
In l995 he became a contributing editor for Vanity Fair. Recent pieces
include Uma Thurman, the Panchen Lama, the Weld-Kerry Senate race,
the Great Camps of the Adirondacks, a profile of Bedford, New York, the
race to find the winter grounds of the monarch butterfly. His
latest book, Legends of the American Desert, (Knopf, l997, a 500-page portrait
of the American Southwest), was glowingly front-paged by the New York Times
Book Review and was both Time Magazine's and the New York Post's second-best
non-fiction book of the year. He is currently writing a cultural history
of Tibetan Buddhism for Houghton Mifflin and a history of his wife's family
from the dawn of Rwandan history through the l994 genocide. Shoumatoff
divides his time between the Adirondacks and Montreal. The father of five
sons ranging from seven to twenty-five years old, he is married to the
former Rosette Rwigamba.
Addresses
:
P.O.Box
151, O'Toole Road, Keene, New York, 12942
telephone
: 518-576-2039; e-mail : alexshoumatoff
@ shoumatopia.com
4579
Rue Jeanne Mance, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, H2V4J5
telephone
and fax : 514-843-5095
Born
Mt. Kisco, New York, November 4, 1946
Married
to the former Rosette Rwigamba
Children
: Andre Luis, b. l978
Nicholas Neto, b. l980
Oliver Shema, b. l993
Zachary Shyaka, b. l995
Edgar Manzi, b. l997
BOOKS:
A
history of the various cultural reincarnations of Tibetan Buddhism, in
progress for Houghton Mifflin
What
If It Had Not Happened ? the saga of the Karambisi family of
Rwanda, in the works, in progress
Legends
of the American Desert : Sojourns in the Greater Southwest, Knopf,
l997
(cover
New York Times and San Francisco Chronicle book reviews, New York Times
notable book of l997, Time Magazine and New York Post's top ten books
of l997, Mountain and Plains Booksellers' Association best non-fiction
book of l997)
The
World is Burning, Little Brown, 1990; Avon paperback; published in ten
languages
African
Madness, Knopf, 1988; Vintage paperback
In
Southern Light, Simon and Schuster, 1986; Vintage paperback
The
Mountain of Names, Simon and Schuster, 1984; Vintage paperback; Kodansha
paperback
(l995)
Russian
Blood, Coward, McCann, and Geoghegan, 1982; Vintage paperback
The
Capital of Hope, Coward, McCann, and Geoghegan, 1980; Vintage paperback
Westchester,
Portrait of a County, Coward, McCann, and Geoghegan, 1979; Vintage
paperback
The
Rivers Amazon, Sierra Club Books, 1978; Sierra Club paperback
Florida
Ramble, Harper and Row, 1974; Vintage paperback
MAGAZINE
WORK
2004-present
: contributing editor, onearth magazine
l995-2001
: contributing editor, Vanity Fair; contributor since l986
1978-present
: contributor, The New Yorker; staff writer, 1980-l990
1992-4
: contributing editor, golf columnist, Esquire
1988-92
: contributing editor, Conde Nast Traveler
1995-present
: contributor, Golf Digest
1995-present
: contributor, Adirondack Life
l978-present
: contributor, Outside Magazine; contributing editor, l979-81
1989-present
: contributor, The New York Times Magazine
1999-present
: contributor, Travel + Leisure
MOVIE
WORK :
Rights
to "The World is Burning" acquired, and author hired as consultant, by
Twentieth Century
Fox
for movie with Robert Redford producing and starring, l989
Rights
to the "The Fatal Obsession of Dian Fossey" (Vanity Fair) acquired, and
the author hired
as
consultant, by Universal Pictures for movie, "Gorillas in the Mist," l986
Rights
to "The Mountain of Names" acquired by Alan Berliner for documentary film,
"Nobody's
Business"
NEWSPAPER
WORK :
1968-69
reporter, Washington Post
1967
intern reporter, The New York Daily News
articles,
book reviews, and editorials in the New York Times, Washington Post, New
York Daily
News,
Village Voice, Book World, Newsday, Patent Trader, etc.
ENVIRONMENTAL
WORK
1972-4
: Middle School Science Teacher, Rippowam-Cisqua School, Bedford, New York
(focus
on
the local flora and fauna of Westchester County
1972-80
: Resident Naturalist and Executive Director, Marsh Memorial Sanctuary,
Mount Kisco,
New
York
1972-80
: editor, Bedford Audubon Bulletin
MUSIC
WORK
1971
: rights to twenty young-Dylanesque songs acquired by Manny Greenhill (manager
of Joan
Baez,
Joni Mitchell, Muddy Waters, Reverend Gary Davis, et al.)
2004
: beginning of recording for a cd called “Suitcase on the Looose,” produced
by Kate McGarrigle
LECTURES
AND APPEARANCES
2004
judge for the Quebec Writers’ Association’s Mavis Gallant Prize for Non-Fiction
November
2000, seminar on the four World Heritage Site national parks of civil-war-torn
eastern
Congo
for the United Nations Foundaton
winter
2000, workshop at Genocide Studies Institute of Concordia College, Montreal
spring
l999, guest lecturer, University of Vermont Department of English;
February,
l998, Barnes Speaker and two days of seminars, Avon Old Farms School
August,
l997, Lake Placid Institute; July, l996, Sightings; June, l996 : graduation
address,
National
Sports Academy, Lake Placid, N.Y.; evocation of life and work of Alexandra
Tolstoy,
Tolstoy
Foundation dinner at Metropolitan Club, New York City; lecture on
magazine writing at
Bennington
College, spring l995; interviewed about Uma Thurman, Entertainment Tonight,
January,
l996; interviewed about The Mountain of Names on NPR's "Talk of the
Nation,"
November,
l995; interviewed about OJ Simpson the Golfer, Extra and American Journal,
August,
l995;
Today Show, NPR's "All Things Considered," lectures on the Amazon
delivered
at scores of venues, including American Museum of Natural History, Cleveland
Museum of Natural History, Harvard Club, Princeton Club, Explorer's Club,
New York Botanical
Garden;
April,
l992 : Earth Day address, University of New Mexico
March,
1991, keynote address, Critical Issues Symposium on "Lifeboat Earth," Hope
College.
October,
1990, keynote address at conference on Environment and Development in Africa
and
Latin
America, Michigan State University.
CONSULTANCIES
2005-6,
The Wildlife Conservation Society, for a baseline ethnography of the vanishing
mountain culture of the Adirondacks.
The
J.M. Kaplan Fund, 2001-2, for reports on the philanthropic possibilities
of Cuba, particularly restoring the Cuba Moderne Architecture in
Havana and protecting the island's biodiversity; on the Ukrainian
prairie churches of Manitoba and Saskatchewan; on the creation of marine
protected reserves in the Gulf of Maine; and on the world’s largest extant
prairie dog town, in Chihuahua, New Mexico.
The
J.M. Kaplan Family Foundation, January 2001, recommendations on worthy
candidates for
grants
The
United Nations Foundation, summer 2000, site report on 4 World Heritage
Site national
parks
in eastern Congo
EDUCATION
:
B.A.,
magna cum laude in English and ancient Greek literature, Harvard College,
1968; senior
thesis,
"The Heroic Language of Chapman's Homer," summa cum laude
high
school diploma, magna cum laude, with honors in English, French, Latin
and Greek,
St.Paul's
School, Concord, New Hampshire, l964
elementary
education at Bedford Rippowam School. 1956-60, and Bedford Elementary School,
1951-56
AWARDS
:
2005
: “Blues Traveler,” in the December, 2004 Travel + Leisure, wins the Silver
Medal in the Cultural Tourism category of the Society of American Travel
Writers Foundation’s Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Competition.
2004
: “The Tennessee Tree Massacre” wins the Southern Environmental Law Center’s
Phillip D. Reed Memorial Award for Outstanding Writing on the Southern
Environment in the journalism category
1997
: “Legend of the American Desert” wins the Mountains and Plains Booksellers’
Association’s award for the best non-fiction book of l997
1996
: "Sun Without Moon" nominated for SAIS-Novartis prize for excellence in
international journalism
l995
: "Golf in Seven Courses," silver medal, International Regional Magazine
Association
1995
: "The Warlord Speaks" nominated for Overseas Press Club Award
l988
: "AIDS in Africa" nominated for National Magazine Award
l987
: "Bokassa" nominated for National Magazine Award
l985
: John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, for book on cultural ecology in the
tropics
1968
: Woodrow Wilson Fellowship, for graduate study in English literature
1964
: highest college board score for Homeric Greek in nation
1963
: highest college board score for Attic Greek in nation
ACADEMIC
APPOINTMENTS
visiting
scholar, Department of Communications. University of New Mexico, 1991-2
instructor
in French and director of language lab, New England College, l970-71
LANGUAGES
English,
French, Portuguese, Homeric and Attic Greek-- fluent
Spanish,
Russian-- nearly fluent
German,
Italian, modern Greek, Kiswahili-- serviceable
Kinyawranda,
Kirundi, Ruganda, Cayapo-- rudimentary
MILITARY
SERVICE
United
State Marines Corps Intelligence Reserves, trained at Defense Language
Institute,
Monterey,
California, l969; honorably discharged as a minister (4-D, the D standing
for divinity),
l971
SPORTS
AND HOBBIES.
Captain
of Squash Team, St. Paul's School, l963-4; Harvard Varsity Squash Team,
1965-8
(national
champions junior and senior year); squash champion of Zaire, l981
mountaineering
: youngest person (ae. 11) to climb Monch, Switzerland, l958; young person
(ae. 12) to climb
Exum
Ridge of Grand Teton, Wyoming, l959. hiking, trekking, canoing, whitewater
rafting in
Adirondacks,
Amazon, Zaire, Rwanda, Uganda, Nepal, Manitoba, Quebec
guitar
: bossa nova, samba, rumba Zairois, jazz, swing, country blues, ragtime,
gospel (student of
Reverend
Gary Davis), and other styles
golf
: handicap 12, special fondness for former colonial and developing-world
courses.
CLUBS
AND ORGANIZATIONS
Golf
Writers' Association of America
Advisory
Board, Lake Placid Institute
Montreal
Badminton and Squash Club
Keene
Valley Country Club
Benefit
Committee, Tibet House Carnegie Hall Concert
Harvard
Club of New York
lapsed
memberships :
The
Century Association
Keene
Volunteer Fire Department
Katonah
Volunteer Fire Department
MAGAZINE
PIECES
“A
Private School Affair,” Vanity Fair, January, 2006
“Madame
Butterfly,” Audubon, September-October 2005
“Mystic
River,” Travel + Leisure, July 2005
“Impressions
of Mizoram,” Chapchar Kut 2005 Souvenir
“Who
Owns This River ?” onearth, spring 2005
“Blues
Traveler,” Travel & Leisure, December, 2004
"The
Tennessee Tree Massacre," onearth, Winter 2004
“The
Greatest Show on Earth,” Audubon, September-October 2004
"The
Alcoholic Monkeys of St. Kitts," Maissonneuve, Fall 2003
"Driving
: Touring the Endangered Ukrainian Churches of Saskatchewan," Travel &
Leisure,August 2003
"Inside
Brazil's Wild Wetland," Travel & Leisure, March 2003
"Artbeat
: The Continent Finally Wakes Up to the Splendor of African Art,"
Travel & Leisure, May 2002
review
of Isabel Hilton's "The Search for the Panchen Lama," Tricycle, fall 2000
"The
Years of Golfing Dangerously," Travel and Leisure Golf Magazine, May-June
2000
"The
Story of Eau," Travel and Leisure, May 2000
"Flight
of the Monarchs," Vanity Fair, November l999
"One
Happy Island," Travel & Leisure Family, fall/winter l999
"Montreal's
World Beat," Travel & Leisure, July, l999
"And
So to Bedford," Vanity Fair, February, l999
"The
Navajo Way," Men's Journal, November, 1998
"Hall
of Fame : Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.," Vanity Fair, October, l998
"The
Final Round of Golf," Adirondack Life, July-August 1998
"From
Russia with Love," Polo, May/June l998
"The
Search for Bill Murray," Golf Digest, February l998
"Golf
in Sacred Lands," Golf Digest, November 1997
"Among
the Cowboys," American Heritage, September, l997
"Mobutu's
Final Days," Vanity Fair, August 1997
"Links
in the Chain," Adirondack Life, August, l997
"The
Real Adirondacks," Snow Country, Summer l997
"Camp
Life," Vanity Fair, May, 1997
"The
Gods Break Through in Uganda," Lapis, Issue Four, spring, l997
"Battle
of the Bluebloods," Vanity Fair, October, l996
"Nathan
Farb : Behind the Scenes," Adirondack Life, September/October, l996
"Robogolf,"
Golf Digest, September, l996
"Par
Excellence," Adirondack Life, August 1996
"Sun
Without a Moon," Vanity Fair, August, l996
"Bomb
City," USA, Outside, April, l996
"My
Father's Butterfly," Natural History, March, 1996
"Numero
Uma," Vanity Fair, January, l996
"Skeletons
On Ice," (with son Andr‚), Snow Country, December, l995
"Clinging
to Life," Destination Discovery, November, l995
"The
Golf Verdict on O.J.," Golf Digest, August, l995
"Golf
: the Second Round," Adirondack Life, August, l995
"Trouble
in the Land of Muy Verde," Outside, March, 1995 (excerpted in Utne Reader)
"The
Secret Life of Stewart's," Adirondack Life, October, 1994
"Gallic
Mischief," Comment, The New Yorker, July 18, l994
"To
the Mountains, mit Four Teen-age Boys," Outside, August, l994
"Golf
on Seven Courses," Adirondack Life, August, l994
"Annals
of Civil War : Flight from Death," The New Yorker, June
20, l994
"The
'Warlord' Speaks," The Nation, April 4, l994
"The
Coronation of King Ronnie," The New York Times Magazine,
October 17, l993
"The
Silenced Love Song of Pvt. Clayton Lonetree," Esquire, November,
l993
"Big
Linkmanship in Clintonville," Esquire, February, l993
"Rwanda's
Aristocratic Guerillas," The New York Times Magazine, December 13,
l992
"Only
in the North Country," Adirondack Life, August 1992
"Lhasa
Notebook," Tricycle, Spring l992
"Uganda
Rising," Cond‚ Nast Traveler, April 1992
"Mengistu
: The Fall of Ethiopia's Black Stalin," Vanity Fair, November, 1991
"Nepal
: the Mountain is Rising," Conde Nast Traveler, August, l991
"Letter
From Lhasa : the Silent Killing of Tibet," Vanity Fair, May l991
"Foxholes,"
The New Yorker, November 12, 1990
"The
Rainforest : A Close-up Look," [Boston] Museum of Science Magazine,"
October,
l990
"Letter
From the Amazon," Vanity Fair, August, 1990
"The
Little Drummer Bird : A Writer Survives the Torments of Spring,"
Adirondack Life,
May/June
l990
"Forever
Wild [the Adirondacks]," Conde Nast Traveler, September,
l989
"The
End of the Tyrannosaur [Paraguay's Stroessner]," Vanity Fair, September,
l989
"One
More Ski," Adirondack Life, May/June, l989
"Murder
in the Rain Forest," Vanity Fair, April l989
"Rio
: Is the Carnival Over ?" New York Times Magazine, March 10,
l989
"P.S.
: A Leap to the Lost Continent [Madagascar]," Cond‚ Nast Traveler,
November, l988
"A
Critic At Large (Henry Walter Bates)," The New Yorker, August
22, l988
"AIDS
in Africa : the Search for the Source," Vanity Fair, July l988
"Our
Far-flung Correspondants (Madagascar)," The New Yorker, March
7, l988
"Bokassa
: The Fall of a Savage Emperor," Vanity Fair, June l987
"A
Reporter At Large (Colorado Butterflies)," The New Yorker, December
1, 1986
"The
Fatal Obsession of Dian Fossey," Vanity Fair, September l986
"Youth,"
The New Yorker, April 14, 1986
"A
Reporter At Large (The Amazons)," The New Yorker, March 24, l986
"The
Museum of Money," The New Yorker, February 10, 1986
"Turtle,"
The New Yorker, December 30, l985
"A
Reporter At Large (Genealogy)," The New Yorker, May 13, 1985
"A
Reporter At Large (Zaire)," The New Yorker, February 6, l984
"Personal
History (The Shoumatoff Family)," The New Yorker, April 26 and May
3, l982
"Profiles
(Bras¡lia)," The New Yorker, November 3, l980
"First
Snow," New York Times editorial, December 23, 1979
"To
the Stone Age and Back : Adventure in the Amazon," Reader's Digest,
April l979
"Inside
Jamaica," Outside, April/May 1979
"Science
takes up the medieval sport of falconry to reintroduce rare peregrine to
a natural
habitat,"
Smithsonian, December, l978
"Profiles
(Westchester)," The New Yorker, November 13. 1978
"Thirty
Days at the Dawn of Time : Amazonia," Outside, July/August,
l978
"The
Carville Hansenarium," Saturday Review, October 28, l972
"An
Incredibly Brown Cow : Wheeler's Ranch Commune," Village Voice, June 1,
l972
"The
Black Prince of Fingerpickers," Rolling Stone, January 20,
l972
"The
Reverend Gary Davis," Rolling Stone, December 23, l971
"How
Was Your Vacation ?," Rolling Stone, October 28, l971
POETRY
“To
My Father,” Maisonneuve, February-March 2005
INTRODUCTIONS
Travelers'
Tales Brazil, ed. Annette Haddad and Scott Doggett, Travelers Tales,
San Francisco, l997
Running
the Amazon, Joe Kane, the Adventure Library, l995
The
Naturalist on the River Amazons, Henry Walter Bates, Penguin, l988
COLLABORATIONS
Dare
to be True : A History of the Rippowam Cisqua School, l995
ANTHOLOGIES
Travelers'
Tales American Southwest, ed. Sean O'Reilly and James O'Reilly, Travelers
Tales,
San Francisco, 2001
Travelers'
Tales Brazil, ed. Annette Haddad and Scott Doggett, Travelers Tales,
San Francisco, l997
Florida
: Past the Present Visions, ed. Vincent P. Betz, Kendall/Hunt, l996
Tales
from the Jungle : A Rainforest Reader, ed. Daniel R. Katz and Miles Chapin,
Crown, l995
Environmental
Crises : Africa and Latin America, Centennial Review, Spring l991
Paths
Less Travelled, ed. Richard Bangs and Christian Kallen, Atheneum, l988
The
Sacred Theory of the Earth, ed. Thomas Frick, North Atlantic Books, l986
The
Adventure Book, Sobek International Explorers' Society, l988
BLURBS
"Shoumatoff
is a genuine citizen of the world, at home with
people
everywhere, and his example serves as an inspiration to all who cherish
the ties that unite
humankind...
In my opinion, he ranks among the very best nature writers of our or any
other
time"--
Timothy Ferris
"consistently
the farthest-flung of the New Yorker's far-flung correspondents"-- Edwin
McDowell,
the New York Times
"admirably
protean, encyclopedic, and indefatigable, Shoumatoff has the curiosity
of an army of
researchers
and writes like a house afire"--- Edward Hoagland
"the
most engaging and accessible of America's peripatetic explorers"-- Los
Angeles Times
"Like
a Graham Greene character, Alex Shoumatoff seems drawn to hot, bug-ridden
places,
tropical
backwaters of the third world, where the superficial comforts and rules
of the West do
not
apply... his writing combines a naturalist's precision with a journalist's
chatty command of
facts"--
Michiko Kakutani, the New York Times
"Shoumatoff
is forever drawn to far-off lands"-- Graydon Carter, Vanity Fair
“Shoumatoff
the writer has a range not seen since Shakespeare-- if then-- and a heart
without borders” – Simon Finn
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