John Darnton (born November 20, 1941) is an American journalist who wrote for theNew York Times. He is a two-time winner of thePolk Award, of which he is now the curator, and the 1982Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting.^[1] He also moonlights as a novelist, writing scientific and medicalthrillers.

After graduating from theUniversity of Wisconsin–Madison, Darnton joinedThe New York Times as acopyboy in 1966. Two years later, he became a reporter and for the next eight years he worked in and aroundNew York City, including stints as theConnecticut correspondent during theBlack Panther trials inNew Haven, and as a City Hall reporter in theLindsay andBeame administrations.^[2]

In 1976, he went abroad as a foreign correspondent, first covering Africa out ofLagos,Nigeria, and then, when the military government there expelled him in 1977, out ofNairobi,Kenya. He covered protests inSouth Africa, liberation movements inRhodesia, guerrilla fighting inEthiopia,Somalia,Zaire, and the fall ofIdi Amin inUganda. His work in Africa earned him theGeorge Polk Award in 1978.

In 1979, based inWarsaw, Poland, he coveredEastern Europe for theTimes and received both the Polk Award and the 1982Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting for his coverage ofPoland under martial law and the rise of theSolidarity movement (he had to smuggle dispatches out of the country). He went on to become the bureau chief inMadrid andLondon and also served as the deputy foreign editor, the metropolitan editor, and the cultural news editor at theTimes. He retired from theTimes in 2005.^[2]

In addition to his work as a journalist, Darnton moonlighted as a fiction writer, ultimately publishing a memoir and six novels "notable for their sinister themes and exotic settings, for overcooked plots that seemed custom-made forHollywood".^[3]

Since his initial success, Darnton has continued his fiction writing, in general sticking tothrillers with scientific and historical narratives:

• Neanderthal (1996), an overnight bestseller about aHarvardarcheologist who goes missing^[4]
• The Experiment (1999), a "riveting medical thriller" whose plot involvescloning andlife extension^[5]
• Mind Catcher (2002) deals withartificial intelligence and humanconsciousness^[6]
• The Darwin Conspiracy (2005) takes place inVictorian-era England and explores the life and work ofCharles Darwin^[7]
• Black & White & Dead All Over (2008) is aroman à clef about a string of murders at a newspaper that is equal parts "page turner and media satire"^[3][8]
• .Burning Sky (2024) is a thriller set today and the immediate future in which three generations deal with a misbegotten scheme to control global warming.

After retiring from theTimes in 2005, Darnton began teachingjournalism as a visiting professor at theState University of New York at New Paltz.^[9] In 2009, John Darnton was named curator of theGeorge Polk Awards in 2008.^[2]

In 2011, he forayed intononfiction, publishingAlmost a Family, amemoir about growing up without a father that also dealt heavily withalcoholism. His fatherByron "Barney" Darnton had been aNew York Times war correspondent until he was killed off the coast ofNew Guinea while covering thePacific War duringWorld War II, when John was 11 months old and his brotherRobert (now a renownedcultural historian) was three years old.^[8][10]

• 1941 births
• Living people
• University of Wisconsin–Madison alumni
• American male journalists
• The New York Times editors
• The New York Times journalists
• George Polk Award recipients
• Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting winners
• 20th-century American novelists
• American thriller writers
• 21st-century American novelists
• American male novelists
• 20th-century American male writers
• 21st-century American male writers
• Novelists from New York (state)
• 20th-century American non-fiction writers
• 21st-century American non-fiction writers

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