*New Yorker* writer David Grann talks about his adventure into the hazardous Amazon jungle to retrace the footsteps of the great Colonel Percy Fawcett, who ventured there in 1925 in search of the fabled ancient kingdom of El Dorado, which he dubbed "Z." Hoping to answer decades-long questions about Fawcett's fate, as well as the existence of this "Lost City," Grann's search for the truth lead to some remarkable discoveries.
David Grann is a staff writer at *The New Yorker* magazine. He has written about everything from New York City's antiquated water tunnels to the hunt for the giant squid to the presidential campaign. *The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon*, published by Doubleday, is Grann's first book and is being developed into a movie by Brad Pitt's Plan B production company and Paramount Pictures. Grann's stories have appeared in several anthologies, including *What We Saw: The Events of September 11, 2001*; *The Best American Crime Writing*, of both 2004 and 2005; and *The Best American Sports Writing*, of 2003 and 2006. A 2004 finalist for the Michael Kelly award for the "fearless pursuit and expression of truth," Grann has also written for *The New York Times Magazine*, *The Atlantic*, *The Washington Post*, *The Boston Globe*, *The Wall Street Journal*, *The Weekly Standard*, and *The New Republic*. Before joining *The New Yorker* in 2003, Grann was a senior editor at *The New Republic*, and, from 1995 until 1996, the executive editor of the newspaper *The Hill*. He holds master's degrees in international relations from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy as well as in creative writing from Boston University. After graduating from Connecticut College in 1989, he received a Thomas Watson Fellowship and did research in Mexico, where he began his career in journalism. He currently lives in New York with his wife and two children.