Author Guide · Narrative Nonfiction
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In 1990 Sheryl WuDunn and her husband Nicholas Kristof became the first married couple to win a Pulitzer Prize for journalism, for their New York Times reporting from Beijing on the Tiananmen Square protests and crackdown. WuDunn, born in New York in 1959 and raised on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, had come to journalism by accident, after three years as a lending officer at Bankers Trust. She went on to report from Tokyo, edit at the Times, and later work in banking at Goldman Sachs and beyond. Every one of her books is written with Kristof: two on the rise of China and Asia, two on women, poverty and what helps, and one on rural America. This guide covers her five key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 5 key books · 1994–2020 · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
Sheryl WuDunn has written five books, all with Nicholas Kristof. The best known is Half the Sky (2009), followed by China Wakes (1994), Thunder from the East (2000), A Path Appears (2014) and Tightrope (2020). Start with Half the Sky; read China Wakes for the Beijing years that won her the Pulitzer.
Where to Start with Sheryl WuDunn
If you want her defining book
→ Half the Sky (2009) — women and girls worldwide, and what changes their lives.
If you want the China she reported
→ China Wakes (1994) — the Beijing years and Tiananmen Square.
If you want to know what actually helps
→ A Path Appears (2014) — the evidence on programmes that work.
If you want the American story
→ Tightrope (2020) — the same method turned on rural Oregon.
5 Sheryl WuDunn Books, in Order
China Wakes
Written after their years as New York Times correspondents in Beijing, it covers China’s economic opening alongside its continuing political repression, including the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and crackdown. Their coverage of that crackdown won them the 1990 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting.
Thunder from the East
Drawing on their years in Tokyo, where WuDunn covered Japan’s financial crisis in the mid-to-late 1990s, the couple use individual stories from Japan to Singapore to examine Asia’s economic rise. They treat the regional financial crisis 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 and girls’ education in the developing world, told largely through named women, and looks at what helps, from schooling to micro-credit. The book argues that, as slavery was the central moral challenge of the nineteenth century, gender equality will be the paramount one of this century. In 2012 PBS broadcast a four-hour documentary based on it.
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, in the United States and abroad, have evidence behind them, and how individuals can give and volunteer more effectively. A documentary of the same name was shown on PBS’s Independent Lens in 2015.
Tightrope
The couple go 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 ways readers can help.
In What Order to Read Sheryl WuDunn
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.
A Path Appears reads best after Half the Sky, since it picks up the question that book leaves open: what to do about it. The two Asia books are the most dated, but China Wakes is still the best account of the years WuDunn spent in Beijing.
A reading path
1. Half the Sky (2009)
2. A Path Appears (2014)
3. Tightrope (2020)
4. China Wakes (1994)
The years · 1959–2020
Quick facts about Sheryl WuDunn
- Known for
- Reporting from China, Japan and the developing world with Nicholas Kristof, and above all Half the Sky, their book on the oppression of women and girls worldwide.
- 1959
- Born in New York City
- 1981
- Lending officer at Bankers Trust
- 1990
- Pulitzer Prize with Kristof, for Tiananmen
- 2009
- Half the Sky
- 2020
- Tightrope
- Born
- 16 November 1959, New York City; grew up on the Upper West Side
- Education
- Cornell (BA); Harvard Business School (MBA, 1986); Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School (MPA, 1988)
- Worked
- Bankers Trust; The New York Times (Beijing and Tokyo correspondent, business editor); Goldman Sachs; Mid-Market Securities
- Married
- Nicholas D. Kristof, in 1988; co-author of all her books
- Honours
- Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting (1990, with Kristof); Dayton Literary Peace Prize for Lifetime Achievement (2009, with Kristof)
- Firsts
- With Kristof, the first married couple to win a Pulitzer for journalism; the first Chinese-American reporter to win one
The red mark is 2009: Half the Sky, her best-known book, written with Nicholas Kristof.
How Sheryl WuDunn Writes: Stories, Then Numbers
WuDunn’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 in Yamhill. The figures come after the people, as support rather than the point.
All five books are written jointly with Kristof, in a shared “we”, with the two of them editing each other as they go. Her training shows in the later books: with an MBA and a career in banking, she brings a sharper eye for what programmes cost and whether they work, which is the whole subject of A Path Appears.
Each book pairs a problem with responses to it, and the later ones end with practical ways for readers to help. That advocacy is also where critics push back, arguing that the books put Western rescuers ahead of local people. For the partner she wrote every book with, see Nicholas D. Kristof’s books.
Watch
A Conversation with Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn
WuDunn and Kristof talk with the journalist Sree Sreenivasan for the University of Rhode Island’s Harrington School of Communication and Media in June 2020.
Frequently asked questions about Sheryl WuDunn’s books
How many books has Sheryl WuDunn written?
Five, all with her husband Nicholas Kristof: China Wakes (1994), Thunder from the East (2000), Half the Sky (2009), A Path Appears (2014) and Tightrope (2020).
What are Sheryl WuDunn’s books in order?
China Wakes (1994), Thunder from the East (2000), Half the Sky (2009), A Path Appears (2014) and Tightrope (2020).
Where should I start with Sheryl WuDunn?
With Half the Sky (2009), her best-known book and the one the others are measured against. If you are more interested in China, start with China Wakes (1994).
What is Sheryl WuDunn’s most famous book?
Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide (2009), written with Nicholas Kristof. It became a four-hour PBS documentary in 2012.
Did Sheryl WuDunn win a Pulitzer Prize?
Yes. She and Nicholas Kristof shared the 1990 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting for their New York Times coverage of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and crackdown. They were the first married couple to win a Pulitzer for journalism, and she is described as the first Chinese-American reporter to win one.
Is Sheryl WuDunn married to Nicholas Kristof?
Yes. They met in Los Angeles through a mutual friend and married in 1988, shortly before moving to Beijing for the Times. They have three children and have written all five of her books together.
What did Sheryl WuDunn do besides journalism?
She started in banking as a lending officer at Bankers Trust, and at the Times also worked in strategic planning and as business editor. In 2008 she joined Goldman Sachs as an investment adviser, and she later became a senior managing director at the investment bank Mid-Market Securities.
Have Sheryl WuDunn’s books been adapted?
Two have become PBS documentaries: Half the Sky, a four-hour film in 2012, and A Path Appears, shown on Independent Lens in 2015. Both follow WuDunn and Kristof with actors who act as advocates.
Why was the Half the Sky documentary criticised?
Its first episode featured the Cambodian anti-trafficking campaigner Somaly Mam. After Newsweek reported in May 2014 that parts of her life story were in question, PBS stopped offering that episode to stations in June 2014. More broadly, some critics argue that the books centre Western rescuers rather than the agency of the women they describe.
What awards has Sheryl WuDunn won?
The 1990 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting and, in 2009, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize for Lifetime Achievement, both shared with Kristof. Newsweek named her one of its “150 Women Who Shake the World” in 2011.
Footnotes
- Sheryl WuDunn — Committee of 100
- Sheryl WuDunn — Calvin University January Series
- WuDunn finds journalism, marriage go together — Women’s eNews, 2009
- Kristof and WuDunn win 2009 Dayton Literary Peace Prize for Lifetime Achievement — Writers Write
- Half the Sky review — The American Prospect, 2009
- Independent Lens statement on Somaly Mam — PBS, 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.
“Progress really is possible; challenges are insurmountable only until the moment that they’re surmounted.”
— Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, Half the Sky (2009)
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