Mitchell Zuckoff

Mitchell Zuckoff is an American author and journalist. He writes nonfiction and is best known for his New York Times bestseller, 13 Hours (2014), and the World War II history, Lost in Shangri-La (2011). He has received awards including the Livingston Award for International Reporting and the Winship/PEN New England Award for Nonfiction.

Zuckoff studied at the University of Rhode Island, where he received his bachelor’s degree. He later earned a master’s degree from the University of Missouri and became an O.O. McIntyre Fellow. Zuckoff also served as a Batten Fellow at the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia.

His journalism career includes work for national outlets such as The New Yorker and The New York Times. He was a special projects reporter for The Boston Globe and became part of the newspaper’s Spotlight Team.

His work there led to him being a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in investigative reporting. Zuckoff’s reporting has received the Heywood Broun Memorial Award and the Associated Press Managing Editors’ Public Service Award. He also received the Distinguished Writing Award from the American Society of Newspaper Editors.

Zuckoff became the inaugural Sumner N. Redstone Professor in Narrative Studies at Boston University. He teaches journalism and narrative nonfiction.

His first book, Choosing Naia (2002), won the Christopher Award. In 2005, he co-authored Judgment Ridge, a finalist for the Edgar Award. His next work, Ponzi’s Scheme (2005), was named a New York Times Editors’ Choice. Robert Altman: The Oral Biography (2009) was selected as one of Amazon’s best books of the year.

Zuckoff's Lost in Shangri-La (2011) recounts the rescue of U.S. military plane crash survivors in the South Pacific during World War II. The book received the Winship/PEN New England Award for Nonfiction. His next book, Frozen in Time (2013), tells the story of a World War II survivor who was stranded in the Arctic wilderness.

In 2014, Zuckoff published 13 Hours, based on the September 11, 2012, attack in Benghazi, Libya. The book became a number one New York Times bestseller and inspired a Paramount Pictures film.

Speaking about the events, Zuckoff said, “Those men performed acts of courage to avert tragedy on a much larger scale.”

Zuckoff lives near Boston with his wife, Suzanne Kreiter and their two daughters.

Photo credit: www.mitchellzuckoff.com