Mark Kurlansky

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

Kurlansky was born in Hartford, Connecticut on December 7, 1948.^[1] He attended Butler University, where he earned a BA in 1970.^[1] He started his career as a playwright. He was a theatre major at college and wrote seven or eight plays, a few of which were produced. He later said that he became "frustrated with theatre, which is to say I became frustrated with Broadway".^[2]

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.^[1][3][4] He moved to Mexico in 1982, where he continued to practice journalism. In 2007, he was named the Baruch College Harman writer-in-residence.^[1]

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.^[5] It became an international bestseller and was translated into more than 15 languages. His 2002 book, Salt, was a New York Times bestseller.^[6] Kurlansky's work and contribution to Basque identity and culture was recognized in 2001 when the Society of Basque Studies in America named him to the Basque Hall of Fame.^[1] That same year, he was awarded an honorary ambassadorship from the Basque government.^[1]

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.^[7]

Kurlansky's 2009 book, The Food of a Younger Land, with the 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.

• A Continent of Islands: Searching for the Caribbean Destiny (1992), Addison-Wesley Publishing. ISBN 0-201-52396-5
• A Chosen Few: The Resurrection of European Jewry (1995), ISBN 0-201-60898-7
• Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World (1997), ISBN 0-8027-1326-2^[8]
• The Basque History of the World (1999), ISBN 0-8027-1349-1
• Salt: A World History (2002), ISBN 0-8027-1373-4^[9]
• 1968: The Year that Rocked the World (2004), ISBN 0-345-45581-9^[10]
• The Big Oyster: History on the Half Shell (2006), ISBN 0-345-47638-7
• Nonviolence: The History of a Dangerous Idea (2006), ISBN 978-0-224-07791-0
• Nonviolence: Twenty-five Lessons From the History of a Dangerous Idea (2006), ISBN 0-679-64335-4
• The Last Fish Tale: The Fate of the Atlantic and Survival in Gloucester, America's Oldest Fishing Port and Most Original Town (2008), ISBN 0-345-48727-3
• The Food of a Younger Land (2009), ISBN 1-59448-865-7
• The Eastern Stars: How Baseball Changed the Dominican Town of San Pedro de Macoris (2010), ISBN 1-59448-750-2
• World Without Fish (2011), this work was chosen by many school districts to be used in their curriculum as part of EL education, including Wake County Public School System.
• What?: Are These the 20 Most Important Questions in Human History—Or Is This a Game of 20 Questions? (2011), ISBN 978-0-8027-7906-9
• Hank Greenberg: The Hero Who Didn't Want to Be One (2011), ISBN 978-0300136609
• Birdseye: The Adventures of a Curious Man (2012), ISBN 978-0-385-52705-7
• Ready for a Brand New Beat: How "Dancing in the Street" Became the Anthem for a Changing America (2013), ISBN 978-1-59448-722-4
• International Night: A Father and Daughter Cook Their Way Around the World with Talia Kurlansky (2014), ISBN 978-1-620-40027-2
• Paper: Paging Through History (2016), ISBN 978-0393239614^[11]
• Havana: A Subtropical Delirium (2017), ISBN 978-1632863911
• Milk!: A 10,000-Year Food Fracas (2018), ISBN 9781632863843
• Bugless: Why Ladybugs, Butterflies, Fireflies, and Bees are Disappearing (2019), ISBN 978-1547600854
• Salmon and the Earth: The History of a Common Fate (2020), ISBN 978-1938340864
• The Unreasonable Virtue of Fly Fishing (2021), ISBN 978-1635573077
• The Importance of Not Being Ernest: My Life with the Uninvited Hemingway (2022), ISBN 9781642504637
• The Core of an Onion (2023)
• The Boston Way: Radicals Against Slavery and the Civil War (2025), ISBN 9781567927658

• The White Man in the Tree, and Other Stories (2000), ISBN 0-671-03605-X
• Boogaloo on 2nd Avenue: A Novel of Pastry, Guilt, and Music (2005), ISBN 0-345-44818-9
• Edible Stories: A Novel in Sixteen Parts (2010), ISBN 1-59448-488-0
• City Beasts: Fourteen Stories of Uninvited Wildlife (2015), ISBN 9781594485879
• Cheesecake: A Novel (2025), ISBN 9781639735723

• The Cod's Tale, illustrated by S. D. Schindler (G. P. Putnam's Sons, 2001), ISBN 0-399-23476-4
• The Girl Who Swam to Euskadi (Reno, NV: Center for Basque Studies, 2005), ISBN 1-877802-54-9
• The Story of Salt, illus. S. D. Schindler (Putnam, 2006), ISBN 0-399-23998-7
• Battle Fatigue (Walker Books & Co., 2011), ISBN 978-0-8027-2264-5, young-adult historical novel, OCLC 704383968
• Frozen in Time: Clarence Birdseye's Outrageous Idea About Frozen Food (2014), ISBN 978-0-385-37244-2, 165 pp.

• Choice Cuts: A Savory Selection of Food Writing From Around the World and Throughout History (2002), ISBN 0-345-45710-2

• The Belly of Paris by Émile Zola, Mark Kurlansky as translator. The Modern Library, 2009. ISBN 978-0-8129-7422-5

Source:^[12]

• The New York Public Library Best Books of the Year award for A Continent of Islands: Searching for the Caribbean Destiny (1992)
• James Beard Foundation Award, the New York Public Library Best Books of the Year award, and Glenfiddich Award for Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World (1998)
• Basque Hall of Fame (2001)
• Honorary ambassadorship from the Basque Government (2001)
• Orbis Pictus Award for The Cod's Tale (2001)
• Pluma Plata award at the Bilbao Book Fair for Salt: A World History (2002)
• ALA Notable Book award for 1968: The Year that Rocked the World (2004)
• ALA Notable Book award for The Story of Salt (2006)
• Bon Appétit Food Writer of the Year award (2006)
• Dayton Literary Peace Prize for Nonviolence: The History of a Dangerous Idea (2007)^[13][14]
• National Parenting Publications Awards – gold award for World Without Fish (2011)
• Robert Laxalt Distinguished Writer award from the Reynolds School of Journalism, University of Nevada, Reno (2012)
• Junior Library Guild selection for Frozen in Time: Clarence Birdseye's Outrageous Idea About Frozen Food (2015)
• André Simon Food and Drink Award, John Avery Award, and IBPA Ben Franklin Gold Award for Nature and Environment Writing for Salmon: A Fish, the Earth, and the History of a Common Fate (2020)
• National Outdoor Book Award for The Unreasonable Virtue of Fly Fishing (2021)

• Official website
• Appearances on C-SPAN