Peter Matthiessen

His book “The Snow Leopard” made a reputation that Matthiessen has carried on into penetrating fiction, environmental activism, deep global encounters, and high Zen Buddhism.

Sounds like a wise man. We could use that right now.

This hour, On Point: A conversation with literary icon Peter Matthiessen.

You can join the conversation. Are you ready for a wise eye and big view of the turmoil we're in? What's your question right now for our world-wise Zen master?Guest:

Joining us from Long Island is Peter Matthiessen, renowned author, essayist, activist, and environmentalist. He is a winner of the National Book Award and a co-founder of The Paris Review. He has been writing now for more than half a century, and his works are considered classics of contemporary American writing. His landmark travel tale of Himalayan exploration, "The Snow Leopard," first appeared in print thirty years ago and has just been reissued by Penguin Classics. His latest work of fiction, "Shadow Country," which came out this year, reworks his epic trilogy of novels set in the Everglades. The American Dictionary of Literary Biography calls him a "shaman of literature."

More links:

Penguin Classics and the Union of Concerned Scientists have launched a new climate change story project. You can submit your stories and photographs here.

The New York Review of Books, to which Matthiessen has been a long-time contributor, archives his essays here, including this November 2007 piece, "Alaska: Big Oil and the Inupiat-Americans."