Jonathan Yardley

Jonathan Yardley (born October 27, 1939) was the book critic at The Washington Post from 1981 to December 2014, and held the same post from 1978 to 1981 at the Washington Star. In 1981, he received the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism. Background and education Yardley was born on October 27, 1939, in Pittsburgh and spent his childhood in Chatham, Virginia. His father, William Woolsey Yardley, was a teacher of English and the classics, as well as an Episcopal minister and a headmaster at two East Coast private schools. His mother was Helen Gregory Yardley. Yardley graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. There, he was a member of St. Anthony Hall and was the editor of the student newspaper, The Daily Tar Heel, in 1961. Career After leaving Chapel Hill, Yardley interned at the New York Times as assistant to James Reston, the columnist and Washington Bureau chief. From 1964 to 1974, Yardley worked as an editorial writer and book reviewer at the Greensboro Daily News; during this time, he was also a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, academic year 1968-1969, where he studied American literature and literary biography. From 1974 to 1978, Yardley served as book editor of the Miami Herald. From 1978 to 1981, he was the book critic at the Washington Star, receiving a Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism in 1981. In 1981, Yardley became book critic and columnist at the Washington Post.