Biographers International Organization

At the beginning of the last century, Ota Benga, a Congolese member of the Mbuti people known for their diminutive height, was brought to the United States and exhibited to Americans including, for a while, at the Bronx Zoo. Author Pamela Newkirk has published an account of Benga’s life and his horrific ordeal. Her book is calledSpectacle: The Astonishing Life of Ota Benga. “Here is a gripping and painstaking narrative that breaks new… Read More »

Penelope Fitzgerald: A Life by Hermione Lee won the Plutarch Award for best biography of 2014, as selected by members of Biographers International Organization. The winning book was announced at the Sixth Annual BIO Conference in Washington, DC. “I am absolutely delighted to have been awarded this prize, especially when I look at the competition!” said Dame Hermione Lee when she heard the news. President of Wolfson College, Oxford, England, Lee was not present at… Read More »

Almost 200 established and aspiring biographers immersed themselves in their craft at the Sixth Annual Biographers International Organization Conference, held June 6 at the National Press Club in Washington, DC. Amidst the various panel sessions, attendees also saw Taylor Branch receive the 2015 BIO Award. Branch is best known for his trilogy about Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement, known collectively as America in the King Years. The Accidental Biographer In… Read More »

By James McGrath Morris Had it not been for the civil rights movement, Taylor Branch would have become a surgeon and the movement would have been deprived of one of its most important chroniclers. For his work in producing a three-volume biographically based narrative history of the civil rights movement, Branch received the BIO Award on June 6 at the Biographers International Conference. He was the sixth writer to be so honored since the first… Read More »

Penelope Fitzgerald: A Life by Hermione Lee (Knopf) won the Plutarch Award for best biography of 2014, as selected by members of Biographers International Organization. The award was presented Saturday evening at the Sixth Annual BIO Conference in Washington, D.C. The three finalists were: The Romanov Sisters: The Lost Lives of the Daughters of Nicholas and Alexandria by Helen Rappaport (St. Martin’s) The Mantle of Command: FDR at War, 1941-1942 by Nigel Hamilton (Houghton Mifflin… Read More »

By Joseph A. Esposito The recent selection of his dual biography of Benito Mussolini and Pope Pius XI for the 2015 Pulitzer Prize in Biography caught David I. Kertzer of Brown University by surprise. According to a statement released by the university, Kertzer said, “I had no idea the Pulitzer Prizes were about to be announced nor any hint they were considering The Pope and Mussolini, so this is quite a shock.” But the… Read More »

Bestselling biographer Kitty Kelley—a founding BIO member who serves on the board— will appear with biographers James McGrath Morris and Linda Lear at the conference in Washington, DC. Their panel, moderated by Abigail Santamaria, will address the question, Does gender matter in biography? Kitty talks to BIO Secretary and site co-chair Barbara Burkhardt about biography and gender—and her dedication to BIO. Barbara Burkhardt: What generated the idea for the panel “Does Gender Matter”? Kitty … Read More »

The following are the election statements and biographies submitted by candidates for the BIO Board of Directors, for seven seats with two year terms, running from 2015-2017. These statements are presented alphabetically, by candidate’s last name. Oline Eaton Oline Eaton is a first-time biographer in the final throes of writing a cultural study of the life of Jackie Onassis, a project she has been dreaming about since she was 12. She lives in London and… Read More »