Lawrence Wright bio

Lawrence Wright is a Pulitzer-Prize winning author and journalist. As a conscientious objector to the Vietnam War, Wright moved to Cairo after graduating from Tulane University in 1969 to study and teach. In 1971, he returned to the U.S. to write for publications such as Southern Voices, Texas Monthly, and Rolling Stone. In 1992, he began writing for The New Yorker.

In 1998, he co-wrote the screenplay for the 1998 film The Siege. The film is a fictional account of terrorist cells making attacks on New York City. In 2000, Wright wrote the screenplay for the Showtime film Noriega: God’s Favorite. For his 2002 New Yorker piece, “The Man Behind Bin Laden,” Wright won the Overseas Press Club Award for magazine reporting.

In 2006, he premièred his one-man play My Trip to al-Qaeda at The New Yorker Festival. Also in 2006, he released The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11. The book won the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction and was nominated for the National Book Award.

• Writer, The New Yorker, 1992-present
• Playwright and Actor, My Trip to al-Qaeda, 2006
• Screenwriter, Noriega: God’s Favorite, 2000
• Co-screenwriter, The Siege, 1998
• Contributing Editor, Rolling Stone, 1980
• Writer, Texas Monthly, 1980
• Writer, Southern Voices, 1973
• Writer, Race Relations Reporter, 1971-1973
• Member, Council on Foreign Relations

• M.A., Applied Linguistics, American University in Cairo, 1971
• B.A., Tulane University, 1969

• The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11, 2006
• God’s Favorite, 2000
• Twins: Genes, Environment, and the Mystery of Identity, 1997
• Remembering Satan, 1994
• Saints & Sinner, 1993
• In the New World: Growing Up with America, 1960-1984, 1988
• City Children, Country Summer, 1979