Caroline Alexander is an American author, classicist and filmmaker. She is the author of the best-selling Skies of Thunder, The Endurance, The Bounty, and other works of literary non-fiction. In 2015, she published a translation of Homer's Iliad, the first English translation of an Homeric poem by a woman.
Alexander is also a writer and producer of documentaries such as The Endurance (based upon her book of the same title) and Tiger Tiger.
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Personal life and education
Born March 13, 1956, in the United States to British parents, Alexander grew up in North Florida, but travelled widely, living in the West Indies, Italy, England, Ireland, and the Netherlands. She began her classical studies at Florida State University in her senior year of high-school. In 1977, among the first class of female Rhodes Scholars, she attended Somerville College, Oxford, taking her degree in Philosophy and Theology.
Between 1982 and 1985, she established a small department of classics at the University of Malawi, in south-central Africa. Following this, she obtained her doctorate in Classics at Columbia University, as a Mellon Fellow in the Humanities. A competitive athlete, Alexander helped open the sport of Modern Pentathlon to women, and was a US Modern Pentathlon World Team alternate (1982).
Career
Alexander began her career as a freelance writer while in graduate school, and subsequently has published widely on subjects ranging from Antarctic exploration, travels in central Africa, tigers, butterfly poachers, ancient history, lost treasure, Xanadu, and military subjects such as shell shock and blast-induced neurotrauma. She has published two New York Times best-sellers (The Endurance, The Bounty).
Alexander was a Contributing Writer for National Geographic Magazine for many years, and has also written for The New Yorker, Outside and Smithsonian among other publications; her work has appeared in a number of anthologies of literary non-fiction.
Her National Geographic Magazine cover story, "The Invisible War on The Brain", was praised for exploring the effects of blast-induced trauma on modern soldiers, and nominated for a Kavli Science Journalism Award.
Alexander is a member of the American Philological Association, the Royal Geographical Society, the Explorer's Club, and the Directors Guild of America.
Published books
Skies of Thunder: The Deadly World War II Mission Over the Roof of the World, Viking / Ithaka (2024 / 2025). “Alexander’s vivid retelling of this aerial feat is matched only by her exquisite rendering of the pilots’ fear.” —The New York Times Book Review (Editors' Choice).
The Iliad: A New Translation Ecco Press/Vintage Classics (2015).
Lost Gold of the Dark Ages: War, Treasure and the Mystery of the Saxons, Random House/National Geographic Society (2011).
The War that Killed Achilles: The True Story of the Iliad and the Trojan War, Viking / Faber (2009).
The Bounty: The True Story of the Mutiny on the Bounty, Viking / Harper Collins (2003). A New York Times bestseller. National Book Critics Circle Award finalist. New York Times top nine books of 2003.
The Endurance: Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition. Knopf/Bloomsbury (1998). A New York Times bestseller, translated into several languages and made into a documentary.
Mrs. Chippy's Last Expedition, 1914–1915. HarperCollins/Bloomsbury (1997). Also published in German and Greek.
Battle's End: A Seminole Football Team Revisited, Knopf (1995).
The Way to Xanadu, Orion (1993)/Knopf (1994) travels to the landmarks of Coleridge's poem Kubla Khan. A New York Times “Notable Book of the Year.”
One Dry Season: In the Footsteps of Mary Kingsley in Equatorial Africa, Knopf / Bloomsbury (1989). A Book of the Month Club selection. Published in paperback by Vintage, 1991; and Phoenix, 1993.
Articles
“Crossing the Wine-Dark Sea: In Search of the Places that inspired the Iliad.” (the refugees who carried the Iliad tradition out of Greece). The American Scholar, Summer 2019.
"War of Words" (Britain's secret propaganda unit in WW1). Lapham’s Quarterly, Spring 2018.
"The Dread Gorgon" (origin of the face of fear). Lapham's Quarterly, Summer 2017.
"Greece, Gods, and the Great Beyond" (Ancient Greek quest for immortality). National Geographic Magazine. July 2016.
“War Shock: Blast and the Brain” (blast-induced traumatic brain injury). National Geographic Magazine. February 2015.
“500 pounds of Stealth” (seeking tigers in the Indian and Bangladesh Sunderbans). Outside. June 2014.
“The Wine-Like Sea” (what did Homer mean?). Lapham's Quarterly. Summer 2013.
“Cry of the Tiger” (the plight of our greatest cat). National Geographic Magazine. December, 2011. Nominated for Overseas Press Club Award.
“Gold in the Ground” (discovery of an Anglo-Saxon treasure hoard). National Geographic Magazine. November, 2011.
“Shock of War” (WW1 shell-shock and Traumatic Brain Injury). Smithsonian. September 2010.
“The Great Game” (war and sport). Lapham's Quarterly. Summer, 2010.
“Captain Bligh's Cursed Breadfruit” (Jamaica's botanical legacy from the Bounty). Smithsonian. September 2009.