Lawrence Wright

Lawrence Wright is an author, screenwriter, playwright, and a staff writer for The New Yorker magazine.

He is a graduate of Tulane University in New Orleans, and the American University in Cairo. He began his writing career at The Race Relations Reporter in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1971. In 1980, Wright went to work for Texas Monthly. He also became a contributing editor to Rolling Stone. In 1992, he joined the staff of The New Yorker, where he was published a number of prize-winning articles, including two National Magazine Awards.

Wright is the co-writer (with director Ed Zwick and Menno Meyjes) of “The Siege” (1998) starring Denzel Washington, Bruce Willis, and Annette Bening. He also wrote the script for the Showtime movie “Noriega: God’s Favorite” (2000) starring Bob Hoskins.

Wright is the author of ten non-fiction books. “Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief” (Knopf, 2013) was a New York Times bestseller and was made into an HBO documentary, winning three Emmys. His book about the rise of al-Qaeda, “The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11” (Knopf, 2006) was published to immediate and widespread acclaim. It won many awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction. It has been published in 25 languages. It was made into a series for Hulu in 2018, starring Jeff Daniels, Alec Baldwin, and Tahar Rahim.