David Grann
An award-winning staff writer at The New Yorker and The New York Times, David Grann is the bestselling author of The Wager and National Book Award finalist Killers of the Flower Moon. Through meticulous, often immersive research, Grann uncovers forgotten stories and reexamines familiar ones, finding unexpected angles to challenge what we thought we knew. Revered for his heart-stopping prose, Grann doesn’t just write about incredible people—he walks in their shoes, and he makes the reader feel as if they are right there with him. Whether crossing the ocean or trekking through the Amazon, he digs deep to give his nonfiction books a thriller-like intensity.
“I have a fundamental belief in trying to tell stories as they unfold. Too often, in doing our work as historians and reporters, we wield our godlike power of hindsight and forget to convey what it was like for the people who actually lived through these moments—the murkiness, the uncertainty about what was going to happen next. I try to put readers into that uncertain state.”
—David Grann
In person, Grann brings his trademark humor and honesty to the current conversation around how we tell stories, as people and as nations. His thought-provoking talks address thorny questions of what gets remembered, who decides, and what version of history prevails. The answers have never been more important, or more necessary.
His newest book is The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny, and Murder. It details the true saga of a company of British naval officers and crew that became stranded on a desolate island off the coast of Patagonia and descended into murderous anarchy. Exploring themes of survival, duty, and leadership, it debuted at #1 on The New York Times bestseller list and the hardcover stayed on the list for 65 weeks. A film adaptation is currently in development.
“The beauty of The Wager unfurls like a great sail…He fixes his spyglass on the ravages of empire, of racism, of bureaucratic indifference and raw greed…one of the finest nonfiction books I’ve ever read.”
—The Guardian
Over the years, Grann’s stories have appeared in The Best American Crime Writing, The Best American Sports Writing, and The Best American Nonrequired Reading. His stories have also been published in The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, and The Wall Street Journal. He currently lives in New York with his wife and two children.
For more information, visit davidgrann.com.
An award-winning staff writer at The New Yorker and The New York Times, David Grann is the bestselling author of The Wager and National Book Award finalist Killers of the Flower Moon. Through meticulous, often immersive research, Grann uncovers forgotten stories and reexamines familiar ones, finding unexpected angles to challenge what we thought we knew. Revered for his heart-stopping prose, Grann doesn’t just write about incredible people—he walks in their shoes, and he makes the reader feel as if they are right there with him. Whether crossing the ocean or trekking through the Amazon, he digs deep to give his nonfiction books a thriller-like intensity.
“I have a fundamental belief in trying to tell stories as they unfold. Too often, in doing our work as historians and reporters, we wield our godlike power of hindsight and forget to convey what it was like for the people who actually lived through these moments—the murkiness, the uncertainty about what was going to happen next. I try to put readers into that uncertain state.”
—David Grann
In person, Grann brings his trademark humor and honesty to the current conversation around how we tell stories, as people and as nations. His thought-provoking talks address thorny questions of what gets remembered, who decides, and what version of history prevails. The answers have never been more important, or more necessary.
His newest book is The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny, and Murder. It details the true saga of a company of British naval officers and crew that became stranded on a desolate island off the coast of Patagonia and descended into murderous anarchy. Exploring themes of survival, duty, and leadership, it debuted at #1 on The New York Times bestseller list and the hardcover stayed on the list for 65 weeks. A film adaptation is currently in development.
“The beauty of The Wager unfurls like a great sail…He fixes his spyglass on the ravages of empire, of racism, of bureaucratic indifference and raw greed…one of the finest nonfiction books I’ve ever read.”
—The Guardian
Over the years, Grann’s stories have appeared in The Best American Crime Writing, The Best American Sports Writing, and The Best American Nonrequired Reading. His stories have also been published in The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, and The Wall Street Journal. He currently lives in New York with his wife and two children.
For more information, visit davidgrann.com.
How History Talks: Stories that Won’t Be Silenced
In this spellbinding lecture, investigative historian David Grann illuminates how long-buried histories can come to life. He draws on his years of researching Killers of the Flower Moon, which documented the erasure of one of the worst racial injustices in American history — the systematic murder of the Osage Indians in Oklahoma for their oil money during the early twentieth century. He also interweaves lessons from his latest masterful work, The Wager, about how the crew of an eighteenth-century naval warship became shipwrecked on a desolate island off the coast of Patagonia and gradually descended into a state of depravity. There were warring factions, mutiny, murders, and cannibalism, undercutting the myth of the British Empire. After several survivors returned to England, they were summoned to face a court-martial. They had to tell a convincing tale — or they could be hanged. As in The Wager and Killers of the Flower Moon, Grann highlights how powerful forces often whitewash uncomfortable truths. Yet, from moldering documents and oral histories, these truths can still eventually emerge to tell a powerful story — and awaken our conscience.
Storytelling: Bringing True Tales to Life
David Grann has been called the “Master of Nonfiction” for his process of obsessive research — from tracing the footsteps of a lost explorer in the Amazon to documenting the systematic murder of the Osage Indians in one of the worst racial injustices in American history. With six of his works turned into major motion pictures, Entertainment Weekly has called Grann “the man Hollywood can’t stop reading.” In this customizable speech or masterclass, Grann uses the same storytelling abilities to take audiences behind-the-scenes and illuminate how his tales are constructed — from the initial creative spark and the intense investigative reporting to putting words on the page and the famous fact-checking system at The New Yorker. Grann also illustrates why, in an age in which the truth is under assault, reported stories are so essential to understanding who we are.
Killers of the Flower Moon: The Arc of Justice
In this lecture, David Grann, author of Killers of the Flower Moon, illuminates how the struggle for Native American rights extends from the first contact with whites to the present day. Grann highlights the saga of the Osage Indians, who once controlled the central part of the country. After being driven onto a rocky, presumably worthless reservation in Oklahoma, they discovered oil under their land and became the wealthiest people per capita in the world. Then, in the 1920s, they began to be mysteriously murdered. Grann documents how one of the most sinister crimes in American history connects to Native Americans’ current fight to control their land and resources.
- The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder (Doubleday, 2023)
- The White Darkness (Doubleday, 2018)
- The Old Man and the Gun: And Other Tales of True Crime (Vintage, 2018)
- 2018 Edgar Allen Poe Award, Best Fact Crime, Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI
- 2017 National Book Award Finalist, Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI
- 2010 George Polk Award for Magazine Reporting, “Trial By Fire”
David was a smashing success, and Rochester loves him! [We] couldn’t have been happier with his presentation and thoughtful responses to the audience questions..It accomplished exactly what we hoped – to inspire conversations beyond the night’s event.
[Grann has] been your favorite writer’s favorite writer for decades…David Grann is poised to become the moment’s leading storyteller…He specializes in gripping historical chronicles and crime stories, filled with fearless explorers and ruthless killers, with twists and double-crosses so rich in intrigue that they would strain credulity in fiction… he’s become one of our culture’s leading sources of holy shit page-turners…Grann has managed to push the conventions of true crime and pop history into something more meaningful.
The sign of a lasting work of nonfiction is that it’s still a gripping read years after its original publication has been consigned to the recycling bin. [Grann’s] pieces, without exception, meet that test.
Grann employs you-are-there narrative effects to set readers right in the action, and he relays the humanity, evil, and heroism of the people involved.
[Grann’s] meticulously researched stories, with their spare, simmering setups that almost always deliver stunning payoffs, have made him one of the preeminent adventure and true-crime writers.
- READ: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny, and Murder, The New Yorker
- READ: David Grann on St. Clair McKelway’s “Old Eight Eighty,” The New Yorker
- READ: How Killers of the Flower Moon Captures the True Story of the Osage Murders, Time
- READ: David Grann on Killers of the Flower Moon Getting Swept Up in the Culture Wars: “You Can’t Obliterate History,” Vanity Fair
- WATCH: David Grann in conversation at the Sun Valley Writers’ Conference
- LISTEN: David Grann on The Wager, Poured Over: The Barnes & Noble Podcast
- LISTEN: ‘The Wager’ chronicles shipwreck, mutiny and murder at the tip of South America, NPR Fresh Air
- The True Story Behind Killers of the Flower Moon Is Being Erased From Oklahoma Classrooms, The New York Times, Guest Essay
- ‘One of America’s most monstrous crimes’: the shocking true story behind Killers of the Flower Moon, The Telegraph
- Chronicler of the Flower Moon, The Ringer
- The Painstaking Journey to a David Grann Book, The Atlantic
- WATCH: David Grann, one of the great modern journalists and author of Killers of the Flower Moon, Connections with Evan Dawson
- LISTEN: From cannibalism to cover-up, David Grann sees his new shipwreck mystery as a parable, NPR Morning Edition
- A Swashbuckling Tale of Mutiny Took Him Where ‘the Soul of Man Dies’, The New York Times
BOOKS
The Wager
THE WAGER has it all… the most gripping true-life sea yarn in years. A tour de force of narrative nonfiction.
The Wall Street Journal
Killers of the Flower Moon
The Lost City of Z
The Devil and Sherlock Holmes
Killers of the Flower Moon: Young Readers Edition
The Old Man and the Gun And Other Tales of True Crime
The White Darkness
Videos
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