A short life of the author
David Grann (b. 1967) was born in 1967 in New York City. He studied at Connecticut College and holds a master’s degree from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. He has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 2003.
Life and Career
The Lost City of Z (2009) — about Percy Fawcett, the British explorer who disappeared in the Amazon in 1925 searching for a lost civilisation, and Grann’s own journey to retrace his steps — was his first major book. It was adapted into a 2016 film directed by James Gray.
Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI (2017) — about the Reign of Terror in 1920s Oklahoma, when members of the Osage Nation were systematically murdered after oil was discovered beneath their reservation, and the investigation that became one of the FBI’s first major homicide cases — was a #1 bestseller, a National Book Award finalist, and was adapted into Martin Scorsese’s 2023 film. The book revealed that the murders were far more extensive than previously understood — not a few isolated killings but a conspiracy involving hundreds of deaths.
The Wager (2023) — about the wreck of a British warship off Patagonia in 1741 and the competing narratives of the survivors — was another #1 bestseller.
Major Works and Themes
Grann writes about obsession, injustice, and the gap between official narratives and buried truths. His method is archival — he spends years in archives, courthouses, and government records, assembling evidence that reveals patterns invisible to earlier investigators. Killers of the Flower Moon is the most powerful example: Grann discovered that the Osage murders were far more extensive than the FBI investigation revealed, and that the conspiracy of white guardians, lawyers, and local officials who murdered Osage people for their oil headrights constituted one of the most systematic campaigns of racial violence in American history.
His narrative technique owes something to both the New Journalism tradition (Capote, Didion) and the detective story: each book follows Grann’s own process of investigation, creating a secondary narrative of discovery that mirrors the primary story. The reader learns what Grann learns, in the order he learns it — a structure that generates suspense from historical fact.
The Wager demonstrated that Grann could apply his method to very different material — eighteenth-century maritime history — without losing his distinctive combination of meticulous research and narrative urgency.
Critical Reception and Legacy
Grann is the most commercially successful narrative nonfiction writer working today. The Scorsese adaptation of Killers of the Flower Moon (2023) — starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro, and Lily Gladstone — brought the Osage story to a global audience and won multiple Academy Award nominations.
Key Works
- The Lost City of Z (2009)
- The Old Man and the Gun (2010, stories)
- Killers of the Flower Moon (2017) — National Book Award finalist
- The Wager (2023)
Collecting Grann
Killers of the Flower Moon (2017, Doubleday, New York) — the Scorsese adaptation and National Book Award nomination make this the primary collectible. First editions bring $20–$80 for fine copies; signed copies $50–$150.
The Lost City of Z (2009, Doubleday) brings $15–$60. The Wager (2023, Doubleday) is widely available.
Grann signs at literary events and New Yorker Festival appearances. Doubleday first editions are the standard collected form.