American non-fiction writer (born 1953)

Jonathan Weiner (born November 26, 1953) is an American writer of non-fiction books based on his biological observations, focusing particularly on evolution in the Galápagos Islands, genetics, and the environment.

His latest book is Long for This World: The Strange Science of Immortality (Ecco Press, July 2010) a look at the scientific search for the Fountain of Youth.

He won the 1995 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction and the 1994 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Science for his book The Beak of the Finch. In 1999 he won the National Book Critics Circle Award and was shortlisted for the Aventis Prize in 2000 for his book Time, Love, Memory about Seymour Benzer.

Biography

Weiner was born November 26, 1953 to a Jewish family in New York City, the son of Ponnie (née Mensch) and Jerome Harris Weiner, an engineer and mathematician. In 1976, he graduated from Harvard University.

Weiner is the Maxwell M. Geffen Professor of Medical and Scientific Journalism at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, where he teaches writing about science and medicine. He has taught at Princeton University, Arizona State University and Rockefeller University.

Personal life

In 1982, he married Deborah Heiligman in a Jewish ceremony in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Heligman is a children's writer whose focus is also nonfiction. They live in New York City with their two sons, Aaron and Benjamin.

Deborah Heiligman's book about Emma Darwin and her relationship with Charles, Charles and Emma: The Darwins' Leap of Faith (Henry Holt, January 2009)—"for Middle Readers and Young Adults"—won the inaugural YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults from the American young-adult librarians, as the year's best nonfiction book. It was the runner-up among all young-adult books based on literary merit (Printz Award), as well as for the National Book Award.

Selected works