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Peter Hessler

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Peter Hessler


Born
in The United States
June 14, 1969

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Peter Hessler is a staff writer at The New Yorker, where he served as Beijing correspondent from 2000-2007, and is also a contributing writer for National Geographic. He is the author of River Town, which won the Kiriyama Book Prize, and Oracle Bones, which was a finalist for the National Book Award. He won the 2008 National Magazine Award for excellence in reporting.

Peter Hessler isn't a Goodreads Author (yet), but they do have a blog, so here are some recent posts imported from their feed.

The Uncertain Future of a Chinese Student at Harvard

Amid escalating threats from the Trump Administration, a student assesses whom he can turn to.
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Published on June 03, 2025 03:00
Average rating: 4.27 · 35,753 ratings · 3,728 reviews · 16 distinct worksSimilar authors
River Town: Two Years on th...

4.28 avg rating — 13,820 ratings — published 2001 — 33 editions
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Country Driving: A Journey ...

4.26 avg rating — 8,077 ratings — published 2009 — 45 editions
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Oracle Bones: A Journey Bet...

4.22 avg rating — 7,611 ratings — published 2006 — 36 editions
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The Buried: An Archaeology ...

4.36 avg rating — 2,805 ratings — published 2019 — 21 editions
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Strange Stones: Dispatches ...

4.16 avg rating — 1,667 ratings — published 2013 — 12 editions
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Other Rivers: A Chinese Edu...

4.45 avg rating — 1,498 ratings — published 2024 — 8 editions
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何伟三部曲套装

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Chinese Sentiment

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4.33 avg rating — 3 ratings — published 2011
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AKHENATEN, EGYPT'S FIRST RE...

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Peter Hessler (Hessler) Por...

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More books by Peter Hessler…
River Town: Two Years on th... Oracle Bones: A Journey Bet... Country Driving: A Journey ...
(3 books)
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4.26 avg rating — 29,509 ratings

Related News

Written during the Qing dynasty, this book is a quirky, evocative, and surprisingly intimate glimpse of the mind of a highly literate gentleman of...
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Quotes by Peter Hessler  (?)
Quotes are added by the Goodreads community and are not verified by Goodreads. (Learn more)

“The American appetite for loneliness impressed me, and there was something about this solitude that freed conversation. One night at a bar, I met a man, and within five minutes he explained that he had just been released from prison. Another drinker told me that his wife had passed away, and he had recently suffered a heart attack, and now he hoped that he would die within the year. I learned that there's no reliable small talk in America; at any moment a conversation can become personal.”
Peter Hessler

“I realized that as a thinking person his advantage lay precisely in his lack of formal education. Nobody told him what to think, and thus he was free to think clearly.”
Peter Hessler, River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze

“People with good memories are liable to be crushed by the weight of their suffering. Only those with bad memories, the fittest to survive, can live on. - Lu Xun”
Peter Hessler, River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze

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