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In 1990 Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn became the first married couple to win a Pulitzer Prize for journalism, for their reporting from Beijing on the Tiananmen Square protests. Kristof, born in Chicago in 1959 and raised on a sheep farm and cherry orchard in Yamhill, Oregon, joined The New York Times in 1984 and has been one of its opinion columnists since 2001, winning a second Pulitzer in 2006 for columns on the genocide in Darfur. Five of his books were written with WuDunn: two on the rise of China and Asia, two on women, poverty and what helps, and one on his own hometown. The sixth, Chasing Hope (2024), is his memoir. This guide covers his six key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 6 key books · 1994–2024 · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
Nicholas Kristof has written six books. The best known is Half the Sky (2009), written with Sheryl WuDunn, followed by Tightrope (2020), China Wakes (1994), A Path Appears (2014), Thunder from the East (2000) and his solo memoir Chasing Hope (2024). Start with Half the Sky; read Chasing Hope if you want the reporter behind the books.
Where to Start with Nicholas Kristof
If you want his defining book
→ Half the Sky (2009) — the book on women and girls worldwide, written with WuDunn.
If you want the American story
→ Tightrope (2020) — the same reporting turned on his hometown in Oregon.
If you want to know what actually helps
→ A Path Appears (2014) — the evidence on programmes that work.
If you want the reporter himself
→ Chasing Hope (2024) — his memoir of four decades on the road.
6 Nicholas Kristof Books, in Order
China Wakes
Written after Kristof and WuDunn’s years as New York Times correspondents in Beijing, where he was bureau chief from 1988 to 1993. It covers the country’s economic opening alongside its continuing political repression, including the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and crackdown, the coverage that won them their shared Pulitzer Prize in 1990.
Thunder from the East
Drawing on their years as Asia correspondents, including Kristof’s time as Tokyo bureau chief (1995–99), the couple use individual stories from Japan to Singapore to examine Asia’s economic rise. They treat the regional financial crisis of the late 1990s as a setback in a longer climb, and take on questions such as sweatshop labour and the poverty that drives it.
Half the Sky
Published by Knopf in September 2009, it covers sex trafficking and forced prostitution, rape, maternal mortality, genital mutilation and girls’ education in the developing world, told largely through named women, and looks at what helps, from schooling to micro-credit. It was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. In 2012 PBS broadcast a four-hour documentary based on it, with America Ferrera, Diane Lane, Eva Mendes, Meg Ryan, Gabrielle Union and Olivia Wilde.
A Path Appears
A follow-up to Half the Sky that moves from the problems to the responses: which programmes in poverty, education and health have evidence behind them, and how individuals can give and volunteer more effectively. A documentary of the same name, from the team behind the Half the Sky series, was shown on PBS’s Independent Lens in 2015.
Tightrope
The couple return to Yamhill, Oregon, where Kristof grew up, and follow the children he rode the school bus with; about a quarter of them, they write, have died of drugs, alcohol, suicide and other causes. The Knapp family, four of whose five children died, runs through the book. They argue for drug treatment instead of prison, early-childhood programmes and universal health care, and end with an appendix of ways readers can help.
Chasing Hope
His first book without WuDunn as co-author, published by Knopf. It runs from the farm in Yamhill through four decades of reporting: the crackdown on Solidarity in Poland in 1981, Tiananmen Square in 1989, a chartered plane he feared would crash over the Congo rainforest in 1997, the invasion of Iraq, child sex slavery in Cambodia and the genocide in Darfur, along with the office politics of the Times.
In What Order to Read Nicholas Kristof
None of the books depends on another, so you can start anywhere. In publication order they fall into pairs: two books of foreign-correspondent reporting on China and Asia in the 1990s, two on women, poverty and what helps, then Tightrope on America and the memoir.
A Path Appears reads best after Half the Sky, since it picks up the question that book leaves open. Chasing Hope works either first, as an introduction to how he reports, or last, as the story behind the other five.
A reading path
1. Half the Sky (2009)
2. A Path Appears (2014)
3. Tightrope (2020)
4. China Wakes (1994)
5. Chasing Hope (2024)
The years · 1959–2024
Quick facts about Nicholas D. Kristof
- Known for
- Decades of reporting and opinion columns in The New York Times on human-rights abuses, poverty and the treatment of women and girls, told through the lives of individual people.
- 1959
- Born in Chicago
- 1990
- Pulitzer Prize with Sheryl WuDunn, for Tiananmen
- 2009
- Half the Sky
- 2024
- Chasing Hope
- Born
- 27 April 1959, Chicago; raised in Yamhill, Oregon
- Education
- Harvard College; Rhodes Scholar at Magdalen College, Oxford (law)
- Worked
- The New York Times from 1984; bureau chief in Hong Kong, Beijing and Tokyo; columnist since 2001
- Married
- Sheryl WuDunn, in 1988; co-author of five of his books
- Honours
- Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting (1990, with WuDunn); Pulitzer Prize for Commentary (2006)
- Politics
- Ran for governor of Oregon in 2021–22; ruled ineligible on residency grounds
The red mark is 2009: Half the Sky, his best-known book, written with Sheryl WuDunn.
How Nicholas Kristof Writes: One Person at a Time
Kristof’s books start with a named person rather than a statistic. Half the Sky moves from woman to woman through trafficking, maternal mortality and schooling; Tightrope is built around the Knapp family from his own school-bus route in Yamhill. The numbers follow the people, not the other way round.
The five books with Sheryl WuDunn are written jointly, with the two reporters moving between their own encounters, and each pairs a problem with responses to it. The later ones go further: A Path Appears weighs which programmes have evidence behind them, and Tightrope ends with an appendix of practical ways to help. That advocacy is also where critics push back, arguing that his work puts Western rescuers ahead of local people.
Chasing Hope turns the method on himself, with scenes from Poland, Tiananmen, Congo and Darfur and a frank look at the risks of foreign reporting; in it he calls journalism “an act of hope”. For writers who report the same way, see Authors like Nicholas Kristof.
Watch
Chasing Hope in a Time of Crisis
Kristof gives UC San Diego’s Burke Lectureship on Religion and Society in 2025, on finding hope in a polarised world, in conversation with Marco Werman of The World.
Frequently asked questions about Nicholas Kristof’s books
Who is Nicholas Kristof?
An American journalist and author, born on 27 April 1959 in Chicago and raised in Yamhill, Oregon. He joined The New York Times in 1984, served as its bureau chief in Hong Kong, Beijing and Tokyo, and became an opinion columnist in 2001. He has won two Pulitzer Prizes.
How many books has Nicholas Kristof written?
Six: China Wakes (1994), Thunder from the East (2000), Half the Sky (2009), A Path Appears (2014) and Tightrope (2020), all written with his wife Sheryl WuDunn, and his memoir Chasing Hope (2024), which he wrote alone.
What are Nicholas Kristof’s books in order?
China Wakes (1994), Thunder from the East (2000), Half the Sky (2009), A Path Appears (2014), Tightrope (2020) and Chasing Hope (2024).
Where should I start with Nicholas Kristof?
With Half the Sky (2009), his best-known book. If you would rather read about America, start with Tightrope (2020); if you want the reporter himself, Chasing Hope (2024).
What is Nicholas Kristof’s most famous book?
Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide (2009), written with Sheryl WuDunn. It became a four-hour PBS documentary in 2012.
What is Sheryl WuDunn’s relationship to Nicholas Kristof?
She is his wife and reporting partner. They married in 1988, shared the 1990 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting for their coverage of the Tiananmen Square protests — the first married couple to win a Pulitzer for journalism — and wrote five of his six books together.
What Pulitzer Prizes has Nicholas Kristof won?
Two: the 1990 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting, shared with Sheryl WuDunn, for coverage of the 1989 democracy movement in China, and the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for Commentary, for columns that, at personal risk, focused attention on the genocide in Darfur.
Have Nicholas Kristof’s books been adapted?
Two have become PBS documentaries: Half the Sky, a four-hour, two-night film in 2012, and A Path Appears, shown on Independent Lens in 2015. Both follow Kristof and WuDunn with actors who act as advocates.
Did Nicholas Kristof run for governor of Oregon?
Yes. He left the Times in October 2021 and declared as a Democrat for the 2022 race, but Oregon’s secretary of state ruled him ineligible under the state’s residency rule, and the Oregon Supreme Court upheld that in February 2022. He returned to the Times as a columnist later that year.
Why has Nicholas Kristof been criticised?
The most cited case is Somaly Mam, a Cambodian anti-trafficking campaigner he wrote about admiringly from 2008. In 2014 Newsweek reported that parts of her story, and of the story of Long Pross, a young woman he had also written about, were untrue; Mam resigned from her foundation. Kristof wrote that Newsweek made a strong case and that he wished he had never written about her. More broadly, critics argue that his work centres Western rescuers rather than the agency of the people he writes about.
What is Nicholas Kristof’s most recent book?
Chasing Hope: A Reporter’s Life (2024), his memoir and his only book without Sheryl WuDunn as co-author. He continues to write his column for The New York Times.
Is Nicholas Kristof still at The New York Times?
Yes. He returned in 2022 after his campaign for governor and writes an opinion column for the paper.
Footnotes
- Nicholas Kristof — Wikipedia
- Half the Sky — Wikipedia
- Thunder from the East — Publishers Weekly, 2000
- ‘Tightrope’ Implores America to Make Changes — NPR/WNYC, 2020
- In ‘Chasing Hope’, columnist Nicholas Kristof details life as a reporter — NPR/WBUR, 2024
- How NYT handled stories about a discredited source — iMediaEthics, 2014
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“Journalism is an act of hope.”
— Nicholas D. Kristof, Chasing Hope: A Reporter’s Life (2024)
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