Tracy Kidder, the Pulitzer Prize- and National Book Award-winning narrative nonfiction writer who turned unlikely subjects into bestsellers, has died. He was 80. Kidder’s longtime publisher, Random House, confirmed his death Wednesday and praised his gifts for storytelling and reporting.

Career and major works

Kidder rose to prominence with his 1981 book The Soul of a New Machine, which won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award for its behind-the-scenes look at computer engineering and an early American tech company. Over several decades he immersed himself in worlds he did not know — from a fifth-grade classroom in Holyoke, Massachusetts, in Among Schoolchildren (1989) to the lives of residents in a Northampton, Massachusetts, nursing home in Old Friends (1993).

In 2003 he published Mountains Beyond Mountains, which followed a doctor’s effort to bring health care to Haiti and reached a new generation after being adopted by university reading lists. Kidder later wrote My Detachment (2005), a memoir of his Vietnam-era service and the support troops he observed there. His work also touched broader culture: John Green called Mountains Beyond Mountains life-changing, and the book inspired Arcade Fire’s 2010 song “Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains).”

Early life and perspective

Born in New York City in 1945, Kidder attended Harvard University and signed up for ROTC to avoid the Vietnam War draft. Instead of a Washington assignment he was sent to Vietnam, where he served in 1968–1969 as the leader of a radio research detachment. After the war he and his wife, Frances Gray Toland, moved to the Midwest so Kidder could study at the University of Iowa’s creative writing program, where he embraced the narrative techniques later central to his nonfiction work.

Kidder rejected some labels often applied to his craft. He told the Dallas Morning News he disliked the term “literary journalist,” calling it “pretentious,” and said the phrase “creative nonfiction” suggested invention. ‘‘I see myself as a storyteller,’’ he told The Associated Press, arguing that nonfiction can, and should, use fiction’s storytelling techniques while remaining true to fact.

Reaction and tributes

Random House released a statement saying: “Tracy’s gifts for storytelling and tireless reporting are an enduring reflection of the empathy, integrity, and endless curiosity he brought to everything he did.”

Author John Green wrote on social media Wednesday: “Mountains Beyond Mountains changed my life–and the lives of so many others around the world.” Others noted Kidder’s ability to make small, ordinary moments feel consequential, a talent he described in discussing the challenges of chronicling life in a nursing home: “Not a lot happens, and yet I think when you read it, you feel that a lot does. Small things have to count for a great deal.”

Kidder’s books brought attention to subjects often overlooked and introduced readers to realms as varied as computer engineering, inner-city classrooms and global public health. His contributions to narrative nonfiction and his empathetic approach to reporting are reflected in the accolades and admiration he received during his career.

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