Barry Holstun Lopez (January 6, 1945 – December 25, 2020) was an American 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. 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.
When Lopez was 11, his family relocated to Manhattan, where he attended the Loyola School, graduating in 1962. 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. Through his works, he also highlighted the harm caused by human actions on nature. He was a contributing editor of Harper's Magazine and a contributor to many magazines including National Geographic, The Paris Review, and Outside. Until 1981, he was also a landscape photographer. In 2002, he was elected a fellow of The Explorers Club.
Arctic Dreams (1986) describes five years in the Canadian Arctic, where Lopez worked as a biologist. Robert Macfarlane, reviewing the book in The Guardian, describes him as "the most important living writer about wilderness".
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. 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. The Guardian describes the book as "a contemporary epic, at once pained and urgent, personal and oracular". 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.
An archive of Lopez's manuscripts and other work has been established at Texas Tech University, where he was the university's Visiting Distinguished Scholar. He also taught at universities including Columbia University, Eastern Washington University, University of Iowa, and Carleton College, Minnesota.
- Distinguished Recognition Award, Friends of American Writers
- Parents' Choice Award
- Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Award, Critics' Choice Award
Nonfiction
- National Book Award finalist, John Burroughs Medal, Christopher Medal,
- National Book Award,
- Introduction by Rebecca Solnit.
Anthology
Edited volumes
Awards and honors
- National Book Award
- Award in Literature, American Academy of Arts and Letters
- Guggenheim Fellowship
- John Burroughs Medal
- Two Pushcart Prizes
- National Science Foundation Fellowship
- MacDowell Colony Residency Fellowship
- Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Award
- Elected Fellow of the Explorers Club
Personal life
Lopez's first marriage to Sandra Landers in 1967 ended in a divorce in 1998. He married Debra Gwartney in 2007.