According to a profile inSlate, Grann has a reputation as a "workhorse reporter", which has made him a popular journalist who "inspires a devotion in readers that can border on the obsessive."[4]
Grann was born on March 10, 1967, toPhyllis E. Grann and Victor Grann. His mother is the former CEO ofPutnam Penguin and the first woman CEO of a major publishing firm.[5] His father was an oncologist and Director of the Bennett Cancer Center inStamford, Connecticut. Grann has two siblings, Edward and Alison.[6]
In 2009, he received both theGeorge Polk Award andSigma Delta Chi Award for hisNew Yorker piece "Trial By Fire", aboutCameron Todd Willingham. AnotherNew Yorker investigative article, "The Mark of a Masterpiece", raised questions about the methods of Peter Paul Biro, who claimed to use fingerprints to help authenticate lost masterpieces.[11] Biro sued Grann andThe New Yorker for libel,[12][13] but the case was summarily dismissed.[14][15] The article was a finalist for the 2010National Magazine Award.[16]
Grann's 2009 non-fiction bookThe Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon recounts the odyssey of the notable British explorer, CaptainPercy Fawcett who, in 1925, disappeared with his son in theAmazon while looking for theLost City of Z. For decades, explorers and scientists have tried to find evidence of both his party and the Lost City of Z. Grann also trekked into the Amazon. In his book, he reveals new evidence about how Fawcett died and shows that "Z" may have existed.[17][18][19]
The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder, was published in April 2023. It debuted at #1 onThe New York Times bestseller list and the hardcover stayed on the list for 65 weeks.[25] A reviewer inThe Guardian wrote, “The Wager is one of the finest nonfiction books I've ever read. I can only offer the highest praise a writer can give: endless envy, as deep and salty as the sea."[26] Former PresidentBarack Obama selectedThe Wager as one of his summer reading books, a popular booklist he shares annually.[27]
The Old Man and the Gun: And Other Tales of True Crime. Doubleday. 2018.ISBN9780525566038.. Collection of 3 articles:
"The Old Man and the Gun: Forrest Tucker had a long career robbing banks, and he wasn't willing to retire", "True Crime: A postmodern murder mystery", "The Chameleon: The many lives of Frédéric Bourdin"
Dark Crimes (2016) The film was based on a 2008 article inThe New Yorker titled "True Crime: A Postmodern Murder Mystery."
The Old Man & the Gun (2018), film directed byDavid Lowery, based on article "The Old Man and the Gun: Forrest Tucker had a long career robbing banks, and he wasn't willing to retire"[34]
Trial by Fire (2018), film directed byEdward Zwick, based on article "Trial by Fire: Did Texas execute an innocent man?"[35]
^Charney, Noah (September 16, 2011)."Interview on Art Security Technology". The Secret History of Art.Artinfo International Edition. Archived from the original on May 14, 2012.
^Heckenberger, Michael.The Ecology of Power: Culture, Place, and Personhood in the Southern Amazon, A.D. 1000–2000. New York: Routledge, 2005.ISBN0-415-94598-4;
^Heckenberger, Michael J. "Manioc Agriculture and Sedentism in Amazonia: The Upper Xingu Example."Antiquity. September 1998.
^"I am David Grann".Reddit. March 2014. RetrievedJuly 7, 2014.And right now I'm working on a new book about a historical mystery. It's about the Osage Indians in Oklahoma. In the 1920s they became the richest people in the world after oil was discovered under their reservation. Then they began to be mysteriously murdered off — poisoned, shot, bombed — in one of the most sinister crimes in American history.
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Presentation by Grann onThe Lost City of Z, February 24, 2009,C-SPAN
