Bestselling Author │ Journalist │ Race & Poverty Commentator

Alex Kotlowitz is an award-winning journalist whose bestselling book, There Are No Children Here: The Story of Two Boys Growing Up in the Other America (Doubleday, 1991), garnered national recognition for its compassionate and unflinching portrait of Pharoah and Lafeyette Rivers and their lives growing up in a public housing project in inner city Chicago.  

"No other book, no movie, no TV show so powerfully portrays the children and families who are outside the American dream."

—New Leader

Selling more than 600,000 copies since its publication, it was selected by The New York Public Library as one of the 150 most important books of the 20th century and it is now taught at high schools, colleges and universities across the nation. There Are No Children Here has received many awards, including the Helen B. Bernstein Award for Excellence in Journalism, the Carl Sandburg Award and a Christopher Award. In 1993, the book was made into a television movie starring Oprah Winfrey, calling much-needed attention to the deep poverty in our cities.

Continuing his exploration of race and poverty in America, Kotlowitz’s next book, The Other Side of the River: A Story of Two Towns, a Death and America’s Dilemma (Doubleday, 1998), examined the circumstances behind the mysterious death of Eric McGinnis, a black teenager in St. Joseph, Michigan—a primarily white town across the river from his home in the primarily black town of Benton Harbor.

"Of all the many books written about race in America in the past couple of years, none has been quite like The Other Side of the River…It is the difference between the two towns, one white, one black, that anchors this story, give it its soul, and makes it important, essential even, for the rest of us to contemplate."

—The New York Times

Kotlowitz’s most recent book, Never a City So Real, is a portrait of Chicago and takes readers on a tour of one of America’s most iconic and historic cities. The Chicago Sun-Times called it “a fine successor to Nelson Algren’s Chicago: City on the Make as a song to our rough-and-tumble, broken-nosed city.” 

In addition to his books, Alex Kotlowitz is a seasoned journalist whose work extends beyond print to include TV and radio. From 1984 to 1993, Kotlowitz was a staff writer at The Wall Street Journal where he wrote on urban affairs and social policy. Prior to joining the Journal, he freelanced for five years, contributing to The MacNeil-Lehrer NewsHour, National Public Radio’s All Things Considered and Morning Edition, as well as various magazines. He currently is a regular contributor to The New York Times Magazine and public radio’s This American Life and his articles have appeared in The New Yorker, The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, Rolling Stone, The Atlantic and Granta.

At present, Kotlowitz is a writer-in-residence at Northwestern University.  He has been a visiting professor at the University of Notre Dame and the University of Chicago.  He also served as a Montgomery Fellow at Dartmouth College.

Kotlowitz’s writings are on the reading lists at many institutions and are particularly popular in programs focusing on social work, education, psychology, urban affairs, race, housing issues and journalism.  He is sought after for his lectures on poverty, social policy and urban affairs and has presented at numerous organizations and universities including Harvard, Princeton, Brown, Wooster, the University of Buffalo, the University of Oregon, Depauw University and Hamilton College among many others.  He has keynoted numerous conferences, including ones sponsored by Neighborhood Housing Services, the American Camp Association, Catholic Charities, the Chicago Federal Reserve, the National Association of Social Workers and the National Scholastic Press Association.  He is the recipient of seven honorary degrees.

A graduate of Wesleyan University, Mr. Kotlowitz grew up in New York City and now lives with his family just outside Chicago.  He is currently at work on a new documentary for Frontline, an examination of the stubborn persistence of urban violence.

Selected Lecture Topics

• The Things They Carry: Growing Up Poor in the World’s Richest Nation
• Poverty and Race in America
• Rebuilding Community
• Empathy and Public Service
• Writing, Journalism and Storytelling
• Chicago
• Commencements

Books

• Never a City So Real: A Walk in Chicago (Crown, 2004)
• The Other Side of the River: A Story of Two Towns, a Death, and America’s Dilemma (Anchor Press, 1998)
• There Are No Children Here: The Story of Two Boys Growing up in the Other America (Doubleday, 1991)

Selected Awards & Honors

• 2004  Thurgood Marshall Journalism Award (The New York Times Magazine article)
• 2002  George Foster Peabody Award for Journalism (radio)
  
• 1998  The Chicago Tribune’s Heartland Prize for Nonfiction (The Other Side of the River)
• 1995  There Are No Children Here selected by New York Public Library as one of the 150 most important books of the 20th century
• 1993  John LaFarge Memorial Award for Interracial Justice by New York’s Catholic Interracial Council
• 1992  Chicago Foundation for Literature Award (There Are No Children Here)
• 1987  Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, Grand Prize (Wall Street Journal article)
• 1984  George Polk Award (for a piece produced for The MacNeil-Lehrer NewsHour)

Media

Click here to listen to an interview with Alex Kotlowitz at Indiana University, South Bend in 2009.

Click here to see the lecture that Alex Kotlowitz gave at the University of Chicago in June 2008.

For more information on Alex Kotlowitz and his work, go to www.alexkotlowitz.com.