Happy Birthday, Barry Lopez

Born January 6, 1945, Port Chester, NY | Died December 25, 2020, Eugene, OR

Today, the Best American Essays newsletter celebrates essayist, environmentalist, traveler, and author Barry Lopez on the eightieth anniversary of his birth. In 1986, Lopez won the National Book Award for Nonfiction for Arctic Dreams; in 1980, he was a finalist for Of Wolves and Men. His essays have been reprinted four times in The Best American Essays series and listed nineteen times as Notable.

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Barry Lopez at age 20, University of Notre Dame, unknown photographer.

The role of the artist, in part, is to develop the conversations, the stories, the drawings, the films, the music—the expressions of awe and wonder and mystery—that remind us, especially in our worst times, of what is still possible, of what we haven’t yet imagined.

Barry Lopez at Finn Rock, Oregon, after the Holiday Farm Fire in September 2020, two months before he died.

Be discriminating and be discerning about the work you set for yourself. That done, be the untutored traveler, the eager reader, the enthusiastic listener. Put what you learn together carefully, and then write thoughtfully, with respect both for the reader and your sources.

Barry Lopez’s Of Wolves and Men, was a finalist for the National Book Award in 1980; Arctic Dreams, an account of five years working with biologists in the Alaskan and Canadian Arctic, won the National Book Award in 1987. Embrace Fearlessly the Burning World is a collection of Lopez’s posthumously published essays.

First published work of nonfiction:

• Desert Notes: Reflections in the Eye of a Raven, Andrew McMeel, 1976.

Select nonfiction bibliography:

• About This Life: Journeys on the Threshold of Memory, Penguin, 1999.

Essays by Barry Lopez reprinted (R) in The Best American Essays (BAE), or listed in Notables (N):

• “The Passing of the Birds,” Orion, 1985 (BAE 1986, N).

• “The Stone Horse,” Antaeus, 1986 (BAE 1987, R).

• “Landscapes Open and Closed,” Harper's Magazine, 1987 (BAE 1988, N).

• “Informed by Indifference,” Harper's Magazine, 1988 (BAE 1989, N).

• “Our Frail Planet in Cold, Clear View,” Harper's Magazine, 1989 (BAE 1990, N).

• “Life and Death in Galápagos,” North American Review, 1989 (BAE 1990, N).

• “Apologia,” Witness, 1990 (BAE 1991, N).

• “The Rediscovery of North America,” Orion, 1992 (BAE 1993, N).

• “Replacing Memory,” The Georgia Review, 1993 (BAE 1994, N).

• “Caring for the Woods,” Audubon, 1995 (BAE 1996, N).

• “Searching for Depth in Bonaire,” The Georgia Review, 1996 (BAE 1997, N).

• “The Whaleboat,” Outside, 1998 (BAE 1999, N).

• “The Naturalist,” Orion, 2001 (BAE 2002, N).

• “A Scary Abundance of Water,” LA Weekly, 2002 (BAE 2003, N).

• “Southern Navigation,” The Georgia Review, 2003 (BAE 2004, N).

• “Waiting for Salman,” Granta, 2005 (BAE 2006, N).

• “Madre de Dios,” Portland, 2008 (BAE 2009, R).

• “Notes from the Earth,” American Scholar, 2009 (BAE 2010, N).

• “An Intimate Geography,” Portland, 2010 (BAE 2011, N).

• “Sliver of Sky,” Harper's Magazine, 2013 (BAE 2014, R).

• “The Invitation,” Granta, 2015 (BAE 2016, N).

• “Fourteen Aspects of Power,” Freeman's, 2018 (BAE 2019, N).

• “Love in a Time of Terror,” Literary Hub, 2020 (BAE 2021, R).

See also, works by authors whose essays have been reprinted in (R) or listed as Notable (N) in The Best American Essays (BAE) series:

• Debra Gwartney, “Fire and Ice,” Granta (BAE 2021, R).

Read Robert McFarlane’s homage, “Geography as Generosity: An Afternoon with Barry Lopez,” Orion, 2023.

Read “The Goal Now Has to Be to Listen,”an interview with Barry Lopez in The Georgia Review, 2019.

Listen to a conversation with Barry Lopez on Oregon public radio, 2019.

Visit the Barry Lopez Foundation website.

Visit the Barry Lopez Archive at Texas Tech University.