Jonathan Eig is the bestselling author of six books, four of them New York Times best sellers. His most recent book, King: A Life, has been hailed as a “monumental…definitive” biography of Martin Luther King Jr. It was longlisted for the National Book Award and King was named one of the ten best books of the year by the Washington Post.

Jonathan’s previous book, Ali: A Life, won a 2018 PEN America Literary Award and was a finalist for the Mark Lynton History Prize. His works have been translated into more than a dozen languages.

Jonathan’s first book, Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig, won the Casey Award. His fourth book, The Birth of the Pill, will be staged soon as a theatrical production by TimeLine Theatre in Chicago.

Jonathan is a graduate of Northwestern University’s Medill School. He began his writing career at age 16, working for his hometown newspaper, The Rockland County (N.Y.) Journal News and went on to work as a reporter for The New Orleans Times-Picayune, The Dallas Morning News, Chicago Magazine, and The Wall Street Journal.

He’s since appeared on the Today Show, NPR’s Fresh Air, and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. He served as a producer on the PBS documentary Muhammad Ali, which was directed by Ken Burns. But his greatest claim to fame, according to his parents, is that his name once appeared in a Jeopardy question (which was solved correctly for $200).

WHY THEY’RE JOINING US

Jonathan Eig, a former reporter for The Wall Street Journal, has written best-selling biographies of such greats as Muhammed Ali, Lou Gehrig, and Jackie Robinson. His latest biography, King: A Life was chosen by The New York Times as one of the best books of 2023 and hailed as “penetrating,” “compulsively readable,” and “the new definitive MLK biography.”

Photo credit – Doug McGoldrick