Caroline Alexander
Caroline Alexander was born in North Florida of British parents and as a child also lived in Jamaica, Italy, Ireland and the Netherlands.
In 1977, she was one of the first women to receive a Rhodes Scholarship, and read Philosophy and Theology at Oxford. From 1982-1985, she established a new department of Classics at the University of Malawi, in central South-east Africa. She later received her doctorate in Classics, with a specialization in Homeric epic, from Columbia University in 1991.
Caroline Alexander began writing professionally while at Columbia University. Her first story appeared in the New Yorker in 1987, and described her experience collecting insect specimens in North Borneo. She has subsequently published in National Geographic Magazine, Granta, and the New Yorker, amongst other publications.
Her books include: One Dry Season: In the Footsteps of Mary Kingsley in Equatorial Africa (Bloomsbury/Knopf, 1989); The Way to Xanadu: Journeys to a Legendary Realm (Orion/Knopf, 1994); Battle’s End (Knopf, 1995); Mrs. Chippy’s Last Expedition: The Remarkable Story of Shackleton’s Polar Bound Cat (Bloomsbury/HarperCollins, 1997); The Endurance: Shackleton’s Legendary Antarctic Expedition (Bloomsbury/Knopf, 1998); and The Bounty: The True Story of the Mutiny on the Bounty (HarperCollins/Viking, 2003). The last two books were best-sellers and published in numerous languages. Alexander was a screen-writer and producer for a variety of films based on her book, The Endurance, including an IMAX film and a two-hour documentary made for Channel 4.
She was Guest Curator of an exhibition based upon photographs from Shackleton’s expedition, which opened in New York in 1999 and which is still travelling in America.Caroline Alexander played an important role in opening the sport of Modern Pentathlon to women. She participated in three American National Championships and while at Oxford was captain of the Ladies Swim Team.
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