Mark Kurlansky

Mark Kurlansky (December 7, 1948) is an American journalist and writer of general interest non-fiction. He has written a number of books of fiction and non-fiction. His 1997 book, Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World (1997), was an international bestseller and was translated into more than 15 languages. His book Nonviolence: Twenty-five Lessons From the History of a Dangerous Idea (2006) was the non-fiction winner of the 2007 Dayton Literary Peace Prize.

Kurlansky was born in Hartford, Connecticut, on December 7, 1948. He attended Butler University, where he earned a BA in 1970. From 1976 to 1991, he worked as a correspondent in Western Europe for the Miami Herald, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and eventually the Paris-based International Herald Tribune. He moved to Mexico in 1982, where he continued to practice journalism. In 2007 he was named the Baruch College Harman writer-in-residence.

Kurlansky wrote his first book, A Continent of Islands, in 1992 and went on to write several more throughout the 1990s. His third work of nonfiction, Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World, won the 1998 James Beard Award. It became an international bestseller and was translated into more than 15 languages. His work and contribution to Basque identity and culture were recognized in 2001 when the Society of Basque Studies in America named him to the Basque Hall of Fame. That same year, he was awarded an honorary ambassadorship from the Basque government.

As a teenager, Kurlansky called Émile Zola his "hero," and in 2009, he translated one of Zola's novels, The Belly of Paris, whose theme is the food markets of Paris.

Kurlansky's 2009 book, The Food of a Younger Land, with the lengthy subtitle "A portrait of American food – before the national highway system, before chain restaurants, and before frozen food, when the nation's food was seasonal, regional, and traditional – from the lost WPA files," details American foodways in the early 20th century.