Larissa MacFarquhar (born 1968) is an American writer known for her profiles in ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. It was founded on February 21, 1925, by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a reporter for ''The New York T ...

''. She is the daughter of the sinologist

Roderick MacFarquhar Roderick Lemonde MacFarquhar (2 December 1930 – 10 February 2019) was a British sinologist, politician, and journalist. MacFarquhar was founding editor of '' China Quarterly'' in 1959. He served as a Member of Parliament in the 1970s, then ...

. She was born in London, and moved to the United States at the age of 16. MacFarquhar has been a staff writer at ''The New Yorker'' since 1998 and has written profiles on

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who was the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American president in American history. O ...

Derek Parfit Derek Antony Parfit (; 11 December 1942 – 2 January 2017) was a British philosopher who specialised in personal identity, rationality, and ethics. He is widely considered one of the most important and influential moral philosophers of the lat ...

Hilary Mantel Dame Hilary Mary Mantel ( ; born Thompson; 6 July 1952 – 22 September 2022) was a British writer whose work includes historical fiction, personal memoirs and short stories. Her first published novel, ''Every Day Is Mother's Day'', was releas ...

Robert Gottlieb Robert Adams Gottlieb (April 29, 1931 – June 14, 2023) was an American writer and editor. He was the editor-in-chief of Simon & Schuster, Alfred A. Knopf, and ''The New Yorker''. Gottlieb joined Simon & Schuster in 1955 as an editorial ass ...

Richard Posner Richard Allen Posner (; born January 11, 1939) is an American legal scholar and retired United States circuit judge who served on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit from 1981 to 2017. A senior lecturer at the University of Chicag ...

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (born Grace Ngozi Adichie; 15 September 1977) is a Nigerians, Nigerian writer of novels, short stories, poem, and children's books; she is also a book reviewer and literary critic. Her most famous works include ''Purple ...

Chelsea Manning Chelsea Elizabeth Manning (born Bradley Edward Manning, December 17, 1987) is an American activist and whistleblower. She is a former United States Army soldier who was convicted by court-martial in July 2013 of violations of the Espionage ...

and

Aaron Swartz Aaron Hillel Swartz (; November 8, 1986January 11, 2013), also known as AaronSw, was an American computer programmer, entrepreneur, writer, political organizer, and Internet hacktivism, hacktivist. As a programmer, Swartz helped develop the we ...

, among others. Her 2015 book ''Strangers Drowning: Impossible Idealism, Drastic Choices, and the Urge to Help'' explores the motivations of people who take altruism to extremes. She is married to the writer Philip Gourevitch.

Selected bibliography

Books

Essays and reporting

* * * * * * Online version is titled "The mind-expanding ideas of Andy Clark".

References

External links

Larissa MacFarquhar
Profile on

TEDMED TEDMED is an annual conference focusing on health and medicine, with a year-round web-based community. TEDMED is an independent event operating under license from the nonprofit TED conference. Background , TEDMED staff operates from Stamfor ...

Mercatus Center interview (2019)
1960s births Living people 21st-century American women writers The New Yorker people The New Yorker staff writers {{US-journalist-1960s-stub