William Archibald Langewiesche (; June 12, 1955 – June 15, 2025) was an American author, journalist and commercial pilot. After taking part in aviation and flying airplanes he worked with a large-circulation aviation publication, Flying. As an author and journalist he worked as a correspondent for 16 years with The Atlantic and 13 years with Vanity Fair magazine. From 2019 until his death in 2025, he was a writer at large for The New York Times Magazine. He was the author of nine books and the winner of two National Magazine Awards.

Langewiesche wrote articles covering a wide range of topics from shipbreaking, wine critics, the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster, the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, modern ocean piracy, nuclear proliferation, and the World Trade Center cleanup. It was said of him that he wrote with "clear, poetic precision" and "elevated non-fiction writing to an art form".

Education and early life

Langewiesche was born in Sharon, Connecticut, on June 12, 1955. His father Wolfgang was a German test pilot who had written a book, "Stick and Rudder: An Explanation of the Art of Flying". Wolfgang took his son flying from the age of four and Langewiesche made his first solo flight aged 14. His mother Priscilla (nee Coleman) was a computer analyst and a professor at Princeton University Art Museum. He paid his college fees by flying air taxis and charters.

Career

After college, Langewiesche moved to New York City and worked as a writer for Flying, a large-circulation publication for general aviation pilots. after he had sent an unsolicited 20,000 word manuscript to the magazine. One of Atlantic's editors, Cullen Murphy, remembered Langewiesche's writing as "a blend of natural history, travelogue, black humour and adventure story, rendered in deceptively simple prose."

The Atlantic sent Langewiesche to various parts of the world and increasingly into conflict zones. In 2006, while living in Baghdad to cover the Iraq War, Langewiesche left The Atlantic, which had moved to Washington, after 16 years and joined Vanity Fair, where he was an international correspondent until 2019.

Langewiesche's 2007 article "Jungle Law" involved him in the controversy surrounding Chevron Corporation and Steven R. Donziger.

Personal life and death

Langewiesche was the son of German aviator, test pilot, and journalist Wolfgang Langewiesche, author of Stick and Rudder, and Priscila ( Coleman).

Langewiesche married Anne-Marie Girard in 1977; they had two children, Matthew and Anna. They divorced in 2017. Langewiesche married designer Tia Cibani in 2018 with whom he had two more children, Archibald and Castine.

Langewiesche died of prostate cancer in East Lyme, Connecticut, on June 15, 2025, three days after his 70th birthday.

  • 2002 National Magazine Award for Reporting for The Crash of EgyptAir 990

Finalist

  • 2008 National Magazine Award for Reporting for City of Fear
  • 2007 Michael Kelly Award
  • 2006 National Magazine Award for Reporting for The Wrath of Khan
  • 2005 Lettre Ulysses Award for The Outlaw Sea
  • 2005 National Magazine Award for Feature Writing for A Sea Story
  • 2004 National Magazine Award for Reporting for Columbia's Last Flight
  • 2004 Lettre Ulysses Award for the Art of Reportage for American Ground: Unbuilding the World Trade Center
  • 2003 National Magazine Award for Reporting for American Ground: Unbuilding the World Trade Center
  • 2001 National Magazine Award for Profiles for The Million-Dollar Nose

; 2020s

References

  • San Francisco Chronicle Feature Profile
  • William Langewiesche at The New New Journalism website
  • William Langewiesche at FSG
  • William Langewiesche biosketch at the Atlantic Monthly website
  • Audio/video recordings of William Langewiesche discussing his book The Atomic Bazaar; from the University of Chicago's World Beyond the Headlines series