A short life of the author
Barry Holstun Lopez (1945–2020) was born on 6 January 1945 in Port Chester, New York, and grew up in Southern California and New York City. He studied at the University of Notre Dame and the University of Oregon. He lived on the McKenzie River in western Oregon for most of his adult life. He died on 25 December 2020.
Life and Career
Of Wolves and Men (1978) — which combined natural history, mythology, and reportage about wolves and their complex relationship with humans — was his breakthrough. It was a finalist for the National Book Award.
Arctic Dreams: Imagination and Desire in a Northern Landscape (1986) — which describes the geography, wildlife, ice, light, and indigenous knowledge of the Arctic, and meditates on what it means to pay deep, sustained attention to a landscape — won the National Book Award and is considered one of the masterworks of American nature writing. It spent months researching with Inuit communities and traveling across the Arctic, and it treats indigenous ecological knowledge with the same respect as Western science.
His essay collections — Crossing Open Ground (1988), About This Life (1998) — are models of attentive, morally serious prose. His fiction — including River Notes (1979), Winter Count (1981), and Resistance (2004) — is quieter but equally precise.
Horizon (2019) — his final major work, a meditation on six landscapes (Oregon coast, Canadian Arctic, Galápagos, Kenya, Australia, Antarctica) and a lifetime of travel — was both a summing-up and a farewell.
Major Works and Themes
Lopez wrote about landscape, attention, indigenous knowledge, and the ethical relationship between humans and the nonhuman world. His prose is patient, luminous, and committed to the idea that careful observation is a moral act.
Key Works
- Arctic Dreams (1986)
- Of Wolves and Men (1978)
- Horizon (2019)
Collecting Lopez
Arctic Dreams (1986, Scribner) brings $30–$80. Of Wolves and Men (1978, Scribner) brings $40–$100.