Barry Lopez

Lopez was born Barry Holstun Brennan on January 6, 1945, in Port Chester, New York,[2][3] to Mary Frances (née Holstun) and John Brennan. His family moved to Reseda, California after the birth of his brother, Dennis, in 1948. He attended grade school at Our Lady of Grace during this time.[4] His parents divorced in 1950, after which his mother married Adrian Bernard Lopez, a businessman, in 1955. Adrian Lopez adopted Barry and his brother, and they both took his surname.[3]

When Lopez was 11, his family relocated to Manhattan, where he attended the Loyola School, graduating in 1962.[3] As a young man, Lopez considered becoming a Catholic priest or a Trappist monk[3] before attending the University of Notre Dame, earning undergraduate and graduate degrees there in 1966 and 1968.[3] He also attended New York University and the University of Oregon.[2]

Lopez's essays, short stories, reviews and opinion pieces began to appear in 1966.[5] In his career of over 50 years, he traveled to over 80 countries, writing extensively about distant and exotic landscapes including the Arctic wilderness, exploring the relationships between human cultures and wild nature.[3][6] Through his works, he also highlighted the harm caused by human actions on nature.[7] He was a contributing editor of Harper's Magazine and a contributor to many magazines including National Geographic, The Paris Review, and Outside.[3][8] Until 1981, he was also a landscape photographer.[9] In 2002, he was elected a fellow of The Explorers Club.[10]

Arctic Dreams (1986) describes five years in the Canadian Arctic, where Lopez worked as a biologist.[3][11] Robert Macfarlane, reviewing the book in The Guardian, describes him as "the most important living writer about wilderness".[11] In The New York Times, Michiko Kakutani argued that Arctic Dreams "is a book about the Arctic North in the way that Moby-Dick is a novel about whales".[12]

A number of Lopez's works for children, including Giving Birth to Thunder, Sleeping with His Daughter (1978), make use of Native American legends, including characters such as Coyote.[13] Crow and Weasel (1990) thematizes the importance of metaphor, which Lopez described in an interview as one of the definitive "passion[s]" of humanity.[14]

James I. McClintock describes Lopez as an admirer of Wendell Berry.[15] McClintock further observes, referring to Arctic Dreams, that Lopez "conjoin[s] ecological science and romantic insight".[16] Slovic identifies "careful structure, euphony, and an abundance of particular details" as central characteristics of Lopez's work.[17]

His final work published during his lifetime was Horizon (2019), an autobiographical telling of his travels over his lifetime.[18] The Guardian describes the book as "a contemporary epic, at once pained and urgent, personal and oracular".[19]

An archive of Lopez's manuscripts and other work has been established at Texas Tech University,[20] where he was the university's Visiting Distinguished Scholar.[10][21] He also taught at universities including Columbia University, Eastern Washington University, University of Iowa, and Carleton College, Minnesota.[3]

Lopez's first marriage to Sandra Leanders in 1967 ended in a divorce in 1998. He married Debra Gwartney in 2007.[3] After the property surrounding their long-term home near Finn Rock on the McKenzie River in western Oregon was burned in the 2020 Holiday Farm Fire, the couple moved temporarily to Eugene, Oregon.[60][3]

Lopez died on December 25, 2020, from complications of prostate cancer, in Eugene, Oregon.[61][3]

• McClintock, James I. (1994). Nature's Kindred Spirits: Aldo Leopold, Joseph Wood Krutch, Edward Abbey, Annie Dillard, and Gary Snyder. University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 978-0-299-14173-8. OCLC 550516714.
• Slovic, Scott (1992). Seeking Awareness in American Nature Writing: Henry Thoreau, Annie Dillard, Edward Abbey, Wendell Berry, Barry Lopez. University of Utah Press. ISBN 0-585-10655-X. OCLC 43475967.

• Newell, Mike (2008). No Bottom: In Conversation with Barry Lopez. XOXOX Press. ISBN 978-1-880977-07-1. OCLC 181335874.
• O'Connell, Nicholas (1998). At the Field's End: Interviews with 22 Pacific Northwest Writers. University of Washington Press. ISBN 0-295-97723-X. OCLC 39478063.
• O'Connell, Nicholas (2015). On Sacred Ground: The Spirit of Place in Pacific Northwest Literature. University of Washington Press. ISBN 978-0-295-99478-9. OCLC 911591750.
• Tydeman, William E. (2013). Conversations with Barry Lopez: Walking the Path of Imagination. University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 978-0-8061-4407-8. OCLC 841557756.
• Warren, James Perrin (2015). Other Country: Barry Lopez and the Community of Artists. University of Arizona Press. ISBN 978-0-8165-3232-2. OCLC 933516717.
• Wang, Amy (December 26, 2020). "Barry Lopez, award-winning and influential Oregon author, dies at 75". The Oregonian.
• Wild, Peter (1984). Barry Lopez. Boise State University Press. ISBN 0-88430-038-2. OCLC 10984800.

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Barry Lopez

Archives at
Identifiers R14  Source digital description
How to use archival material

• Official website
• Appearances on C-SPAN
• Barry Lopez discography at Discogs
• Interview with Bill Moyers
• Interview with Terry Gross