Simon Winchester facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Simon Winchester
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Winchester in 2013
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| Born | 28 September 1944 London, England |
| Occupation | Journalist, author |
| Education | University of Oxford |
| Spouse | Catherine Evans (div.) Setsuko Winchester |
Simon Winchester (born on September 28, 1944) is a British-American writer and journalist. He has written over 30 popular non-fiction books. He also worked for The Guardian newspaper, where he reported on important events like Bloody Sunday and the Watergate Scandal. His articles have appeared in magazines such as Condé Nast Traveler, Smithsonian Magazine, and National Geographic.
Contents
Early Life and Education
Simon Winchester was born in London, England. He went to several boarding schools in Dorset. After school, he spent a year traveling across the United States by hitchhiking.
In 1963, he went to St Catherine's College, Oxford, to study geology, which is the study of Earth's rocks and minerals. He finished his studies in 1966. After graduating, he worked for a Canadian mining company called Falconbridge of Africa. His first job was to look for copper in Uganda.
Simon Winchester's Career as a Writer
While working in Uganda, Simon found a book called Coronation Everest by James Morris. This book was about the first successful climb of Mount Everest in 1953. Reading it made Simon want to become a writer. He wrote to James Morris for advice. Morris told him to stop being a geologist right away and start working as a writer for a newspaper.
Starting as a Journalist
In 1969, Simon Winchester joined The Guardian newspaper. He first worked as a local reporter in Newcastle upon Tyne. Later, he became their reporter in Northern Ireland. During his time there, he reported on many events during a difficult period known as The Troubles. This included Bloody Sunday and the "Hour of Terror" in Belfast.
After leaving Northern Ireland in 1972, Simon briefly worked in Calcutta. Then, he became The Guardian's reporter in Washington, D.C. He covered news from the end of Richard Nixon's time as president to the beginning of Jimmy Carter's presidency.
Reporting from the Falkland Islands
In 1982, Simon Winchester was working for The Sunday Times. He was reporting from the Falkland Islands when Argentine forces invaded. He was thought to be a spy and was held as a prisoner for three months in Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego. He wrote about this experience in his book Prison Diary (1983). He also wrote about it in Outposts: Journeys to the Surviving Relics of the British Empire (1985) and Atlantic: A Vast Ocean of a Million Stories (2010). In Atlantic, he even shares how he met one of his jailers years later.
Becoming a Freelance Writer
In 1985, Simon started working as a freelance writer, meaning he worked for himself. He traveled to Hong Kong. When Signature magazine became Condé Nast Traveler, Simon was made its Asia-Pacific Editor. For the next fifteen years, he wrote for many travel magazines. These included Traveler, National Geographic, and Smithsonian magazine.
His Famous Books
Simon Winchester's first book, In Holy Terror, was published in 1975. It was based on his experiences in Northern Ireland. His second book, American Heartbeat, came out in 1976. It was about his travels through the middle of America.
His first really successful book was The Professor and the Madman (1998). This book tells the amazing story of how the Oxford English Dictionary was created. It became a New York Times Best Seller.
Simon continued to write travel books. But he also started writing more narrative non-fiction, which tells true stories in an engaging way. Many of these books became best-sellers.
- The Map that Changed the World (2001) is about the geologist William Smith. It was his second New York Times best seller.
- In 2003, he published The Meaning of Everything, which again explored the story of the Oxford English Dictionary. He also released the best-selling book Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded, about the huge volcanic eruption.
- A Crack in the Edge of the World (2005) is about the big San Francisco's 1906 earthquake.
- The Man Who Loved China (2008) tells the life story of the scholar Joseph Needham.
- The Alice Behind Wonderland (2011) looks into the life of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (who wrote as Lewis Carroll) and his connection with Alice Liddell.
- His book Pacific: Silicon Chips and Surfboards, Coral Reefs and Atom Bombs, Brutal Dictators, Fading Empires, and the Coming Collision of the World's Superpowers (2015) is about the Pacific Ocean. He had written about the Pacific before in Pacific Rising (1991).
In the mid-1980s, Simon Winchester even managed to visit the secret island of Diego Garcia. He pretended his boat had problems near the island and stayed in the bay for two days. He briefly stepped ashore before being told by British officials to leave and not come back.
Film Adaptation
A movie based on his book The Surgeon of Crowthorne (also known as The Professor and the Madman) was released in 2019. It starred Mel Gibson.
Personal Life
On July 4, 2011, Simon Winchester became an American citizen. The ceremony took place on the USS Constitution ship. He now lives in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, in the United States. He also started a local newspaper called the Sandisfield Times, which focuses on news in his small town.
Honours and Awards
Simon Winchester has received several important awards:
- In 2006, he was given the Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for his work in journalism and writing.
- In October 2009, he was named an honorary fellow at St Catherine's College, Oxford, where he studied.
- In October 2010, he received an honorary degree from Dalhousie University.
- In November 2016, he received the Lawrence J. Burpee Medal from the Royal Canadian Geographical Society. He also became a Fellow of the RCGS.
