Lawrence Wright (born August 2, 1947) is an American writer and journalist, a staff writer for The New Yorker magazine, and fellow at the Center for Law and Security at the New York University School of Law.
Wright is best known as the author of the 2006 nonfiction book, .
He is also known for his work with documentarian Alex Gibney, who directed film versions of Wright's one-man show, My Trip to Al-Qaeda, and his book Going Clear.
Early life
Wright graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School in Dallas, Texas, in 1965 and was inducted into the school's Hall of Fame in 2009.
He is a graduate of Tulane University and taught English at the American University in Cairo (from which he was awarded a Master of Arts in Applied Linguistics in 1969) in
Egypt for two years.
Wright lives in Austin, Texas.
Career
In 1980 Wright began working for the magazine
Texas Monthly and contributed to
Rolling Stone magazine. In late 1992 he joined the staff of
The New Yorker.
The Looming Tower
Wright is the author of six books but is best known for his 2006 publication,
The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11.
A quick bestseller,
The Looming Tower was awarded the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize,
the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction, and is frequently referred to by some
as being an excellent source of background information on
Al Qaeda and the September 11 attacks. The book's title is a phrase from the : "Wherever you are, death will find you, even in the looming tower," which Osama bin Laden quoted three times in a videotaped speech seen as directed to the 9/11 hijackers.
Going Clear
In 2011 Wright wrote a profile of former
Scientology Paul Haggis for
The New Yorker.
Starting with Haggis and eventually speaking with 200 current and former Scientologists,
The New York Times published Michael Kinsley's review of the book, where he wrote: "That crunching sound you hear is Lawrence Wright bending over backward to be fair to Scientology. Every deceptive comparison with Mormonism and other religions is given a respectful hearing. Every ludicrous bit of church dogma is served up deadpan. This makes the book's indictment that much more powerful."
In 2015, Alex Gibney produced a documentary based on Wright's book, titled . The film was nominated for seven Emmy Awards, winning three,
Other projects
Among Wright's other books are
Remembering Satan: A Tragic Case of Recovered Memory (1994), about the Paul Ingram
false memory case. On June 7, 1996, Wright testified at Ingram's pardon hearing.
His 2020 novel, The End of October, a thriller about a pandemic, was released in April 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic,
Wright co-wrote the screenplay for the film The Siege (1998), which tells the story of a terrorism attack in New York City that leads to curtailed civil liberties and rounding up of Arab-Americans.
A documentary featuring Wright, My Trip to Al-Qaeda, premiered on HBO in September 2010. It was based on his journeys and experiences in the Middle East during his research for The Looming Tower.
Wright plays the keyboard in the Austin, Texas, blues collective WhoDo.
Wright is also a playwright. He has worked on a script over several years concerning the making of the epic film Cleopatra that starred Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton and Rex Harrison. The play is titled Cleo and was to have opened September 2017 in Houston, Texas, but was delayed by catastrophic flooding caused by Hurricane Harvey. It eventually opened in April 2018.
Awards and honors
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2006 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for The Looming Tower
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2006 New York Times bestseller for The Looming Tower
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2006 New York Times Notable Book of the Year for The Looming Tower
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2006 New York Times Best Books of the Year for The Looming Tower
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2006 IRE Award for The Looming Tower
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2006 National Book Award finalist for The Looming Tower
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2006 Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist for The Looming Tower
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2006 Time magazine's Best Books of the Year for The Looming Tower
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2007 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction for The Looming Tower
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2007 Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism for The Looming Tower
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2007 J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize for The Looming Tower
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2007 Lionel Gelber Prize for The Looming Tower
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2007 Arthur Ross Book Award shortlist for The Looming Tower
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2007 PEN Center USA Literary Award (Research Nonfiction) for The Looming Tower
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2009 Newsweek 50 Books for Our Times for The Looming Tower
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2013 National Book Award for Nonfiction finalist for Going Clear
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2013 National Book Critics Circle Award (Nonfiction) shortlist for Going Clear
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2015 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special.
Bibliography
Books
- Nonfiction
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God Save Texas: A Journey into the Soul of the Lone Star State. Alfred A. Knopf. 2018. .
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. Alfred A. Knopf. 2021.
- Fiction
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The Human Scale: A Novel. Alfred A Knopf. 2025.
Plays
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Camp David (premiered at Arena Stage (Washington, D.C.) in March 2014)
Essays and reporting
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[Title in the online table of contents is "Palmyra, from Zenobia to ISIS".]
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[Online version is titled "The astonishing transformation of Austin".]
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- Bibliography notes
External links
