Oregon. The award-winning American writer Barry Lopez, who tried to strengthen the bonds between people and places by describing landscapes he knew during 50 years of travel, has died. He was 75 years old.
Lopez died Friday in Eugene, Oregon, after a long, multi-year battle with prostate cancer, his family said.
His longtime friend, Oregon poet laureate Kim Stafford, said Lopez’s books “are iconic places that define a region, a time, a cause. He also exemplifies a life of devotion to crafts and learning, being humble in the face of wisdom of all kinds.
Lopez, author of nearly 20 natural history study books, along with essays and short story collections, won the 1986 National Book Award for “Arctic Dreams: Imagination and Desire in a Northern Landscape.” The text was the result of almost five years of travel to the Arctic.
His last work was “Horizon”, an autobiography that recalls a life of travel in more than 70 countries.
Born in 1945 in Port Chester, New York, Lopez grew up in the San Fernando Valley, California, and after his mother remarried, in New York City. In “Horizon,” he wrote that during those years of his formation he developed “a desire to just walk away. To look for what the horizon had cordoned off ”.
His last years were spent with his wife, Debra Gwartney, in a wooded area near the McKenzie River, east of Eugene. After writing for years about the natural world and the impacts of humans on climate change, he lamented the loss of acres of trees, not to mention personal documents, in the Holiday Farm fire in September 2020.
He is survived by his wife, four stepdaughters and an older brother. A younger brother passed away in 2017.
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