22 Facts About Peter Matthiessen

Peter Matthiessen was an American novelist, naturalist, wilderness writer, zen teacher and onetime CIA agent.

Peter Matthiessen's fiction was adapted for film: the early story "Travelin' Man" was made into The Young One by Luis Bunuel and the novel At Play in the Fields of the Lord into the 1991 film of the same name.

In 2008, at age 81, Peter Matthiessen received the National Book Award for Fiction for Shadow Country, a one-volume, 890-page revision of his three novels set in frontier Florida that had been published in the 1990s.

Peter Matthiessen was treated for acute leukemia for more than a year.

Peter Matthiessen died on April 5,2014, three days before publication of his final book, the novel In Paradise on April 8.

Peter Matthiessen was born in New York City to Erard Adolph Peter Matthiessen and Elizabeth.

The well-to-do family lived in both New York City and Connecticut where, along with his brother, Peter Matthiessen developed a love of animals that influenced his future work as a wildlife writer and naturalist.

Peter Matthiessen completed his novel Partisans while employed by the CIA.

Peter Matthiessen returned to the US in 1954, leaving Plimpton in charge of the Review.

In 1959, Peter Matthiessen published the first edition of Wildlife in America, a history of the extinction and endangerment of animal and bird species as a consequence of human settlement, throughout North American history, and of the human effort to protect endangered species.

In 1965, Peter Matthiessen published At Play in the Fields of the Lord, a novel about a group of American missionaries and their encounter with a South American indigenous tribe.

Late in 1973, Peter Matthiessen joined field biologist George Schaller on an expedition in the Himalaya Mountains, which was the basis for The Snow Leopard, his double award-winner.

Interested in the Wounded Knee Incident and the 1976 trial and conviction of Leonard Peltier, an American Indian Movement activist, Peter Matthiessen wrote a non-fiction account, In the Spirit of Crazy Horse.

In 2008, Matthiessen revisited his trilogy of Florida novels published during the 1990s: Killing Mr Watson, Lost Man's River and Bone by Bone, inspired by the frontier years of South Florida and the death of planter Edgar J Watson shortly after the Southwest Florida Hurricane of 1910.

Peter Matthiessen revised and edited the three books, which had originated as one 1,500-page manuscript, which eventually yielded the award-winning single-volume Shadow Country.

Peter Matthiessen died in New York City in January 1972.

Peter Matthiessen later became a Buddhist priest of the White Plum Asanga.

Peter Matthiessen gave dharma transmission to three students: Sensei Madeline Ko-I Bastis, Sensei Michel Engu Dobbs, and Sensei Dorothy Dai-En Friedman.

Peter Matthiessen said his Buddhism evolved fairly naturally from his drug experiences.

In 1980, Peter Matthiessen married Maria Eckhart, born in Tanzania, in a Zen ceremony on Long Island, New York.

In 1989, Matthiessen published an autobiographical essay wherein he traced his ancestry to North Frisian shipmaster and whaling captain Matthias Petersen.

Peter Matthiessen died at his home in Sagaponack on April 5,2014, aged 86.