Author Tracy Kidder to explore 'Problem of Goodness'

Internationally acclaimed writer, reporter, and journalist Tracy Kidder, whose nonfiction books have earned him a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award among other honors, will lecture on ?The Problem of Goodness? at 7 p.m. Tuesday, March 18, in Gannett Auditorium of Palamountain Hall. The event, sponsored by Skidmore?s First-Year Experience, is free and open to the public.

Kidder, a native of New York City, spent his childhood growing up in Oyster Bay, Long Island, where his father was a lawyer and his mother a teacher. He attended Harvard, where he earned a B.A. degree in 1967. From 1967 to 1969, he served as first lieutenant in Vietnam, and was awarded a Bronze Star.

Following the war, Kidder obtained his master?s degree from the University of Iowa, where he participated in the Iowa Writers? Workshop, a program known for the literary luster of both its staff and alumni. It was there that Kidder met Atlantic Monthly contributing editor Dan Wakefield, who helped him get his first assignment for the magazine. Kidder?s articles in the Atlantic have covered a broad array of topics, ranging from railroads, to energy, architecture, the environment, among others.

Kidder's writing has been prolific and outstanding. The Soul of a New Machine?a book celebrated for its insight into the world of corporate, high-technology America?earned him a Pulitzer and a National Book Award in 1982. Other bestselling works include House (1985), Among Schoolchildren (1989), Old Friends (1993) and Home Town (1999). He has also written several short works of fiction.

Mountains Beyond Mountains, published in 2003, captures two crises, tuberculosis and AIDS, through the eyes of a single-minded physician bent on improving the health of some of the poorest people on the planet. The story of Dr. Paul Farmer, a major force in revolutionizing international health, it follows Farmer?s quests to establish clinics and hospitals, his compassion for the poor, his inner circle of true believers and, ultimately, his success in helping stem the tide of new HIV and TB infections in poorer areas. Farmer divides his clinical time between the Brigham and Women?s Hospital (Division of Infectious Disease), where he is an attending physician, and a charity hospital in rural Haiti, the Clinique Bon Sauveur, where he serves as medical co-director. In 1987, Dr. Farmer founded Zanmi Lasante (Creole for Partners in Health), a non-governmental organization that is the only health-care provider in the Plateau Central in Haiti.

The book was assigned as the First-Year Experience shared reading for the Skidmore Class of 2011, chosen for its themes of science and community service.

Kidder?s most recent book, My Detachment (Random House, 2005), is an extraordinary memoir about his experiences as a soldier in Vietnam. In an astonishingly honest, comic, and moving account of his tour of duty in Vietnam, Kidder writes for the first time about himself.

Kidder is a regular contributor to the New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, and The New York Times Book Review. He received the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award in 1990, the Ambassador Book Award in 1990 and the Sarah Josepha Hale Award in 1998, among others.