David Maraniss | Path Lit by Lightning: The Life of Jim Thorpe

In conversation with Paul Hendrickson ''One of our most talented biographers and historians'' (The New York Times), David Maraniss is the author of bestselling portraits of some of America's most consequential figures, including Bill Clinton, Vince Lombardi, Barack Obama, and Roberto Clemente, as well as an acclaimed trilogy of books about the 1960s. An associate editor at The Washington Post, he has twice won the Pulitzer Prize for journalism. His other honors include three additional Pulitzer Prize nominations, The Robert F. Kennedy Book Prize, and the George Polk Award. Maraniss is currently a distinguished visiting professor at Vanderbilt University. In his latest bestseller Path Lit by Lightning, he offers a nuanced analysis of the life of Jim Thorpe, the man known as ''the world's greatest athlete,'' who, as a member of the Sac and Fox Nation in the early 20th century, faced some of his greatest challenges off the field of competition. Paul Hendrickson's seven acclaimed books include Hemingway's Boat: Everything He Loved in Life, and Lost, 1934–1961, a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist; Sons of Mississippi, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award; and The Living and the Dead: Robert McNamara and Five Lives of a Lost War, a National Book Award finalist. A creative writing teacher at the University of Pennsylvania for more than 20 years and a feature writer at The Washington Post for the two decades before that, he has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize six times. (recorded 6/7/2023)