Edward Hoagland, Lyrical Chronicler of the Natural World, Dies at 93

Edward Hoagland, whose shimmering essays explored the natural world, travel and his own journeys into blindness, died on Tuesday in Manhattan. He was 93. His death at an assisted living facility was confirmed by his daughter, Molly Magid Hoagland. Widely regarded as one of the country’s foremost essayists, he transformed the modern nature essay into a vehicle for autobiographical introspection.

He wrote about landscapes from Africa to Alaska and British Columbia and about his own life—the speech impediment that marked his youth, the blindness that overtook him in his 50s, the operation that briefly restored his sight and its eventual return. John Updike called him "the best essayist of my generation," and Philip Roth described him as "America’s most intelligent and wide-ranging essayist-naturalist." His collections include Walking the Dead Diamond River, The Courage of Turtles, Red Wolves and Black Bears and The Tugman's Passage, with essays first published in outlets such as The New York Times, The New Yorker and The Atlantic.

edward hoagland, essayist, nature essay, blindness, autobiographical, travel, manhattan, the new, the atlantic, john updike