Edward Hoagland

Alum 1999

Edward Hoagland is an author best known for his nature and travel writing. His non-fiction has been widely praised by writers such as John Updike, who called him “the best essayist of my generation,” and Joyce Carol Oates: “Our Chopin of the genre.”

Edward joined the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus in 1951 and sold a novel about this experience, Cat Man, before graduating from Harvard in 1954. After serving two years in the Army, he published The Circle Home, a novel about the boxing world of New York. Soon after, he took the first of his nine trips to Alaska and British Columbia.

During the 1970s he made the first two of his five trips to Africa. After receiving two Guggenheim Fellowships, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1982. He is also a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Edward has taught at The New School, Rutgers, Sarah Lawrence, CUNY, the University of Iowa, U.C. Davis, Columbia University, Beloit College, Brown and Bennington, beginning in 1963 and retiring in 2005.