Andrew Solomon

Andrew’s memoir, The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression, won the National Book Award, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and was a worldwide bestseller – published in more than twenty languages. It is included in the London Times One Hundred Best Books of the Decade, and it is widely considered the definitive text on depression. In 2016, Andrew released a collection of essays examining some twenty-five years of international travel titled Far and Away. The essays chronicle Andrew’s unique experiences in places undergoing seismic shifts – political, cultural, and spiritual. Far and Away provides a view into some of the most crucial social transformations of the past quarter-century.

Acclaimed as a revolutionary feat of journalism, Far From the Tree: Parents, Children & the Search for Identity, is an examination of the means by which families accommodate children with physical, mental and social disabilities and how these unusual situations can be invested with love. Andrew spent ten years researching the book, interviewing more than 300 families and generating more than 40,000 pages of notes. NPR called the book “a work of genius” and Vanity Fair said, “Andrew Solomon’s empathy, heart, and vast intelligence are in abundance in Far from the Tree.” Far From the Tree has been adapted into an inspiring documentary that has been described as “passionate” and “life-affirming.”

Andrew is an outspoken activist and philanthropist for many causes in LGBT rights, mental health, family, disability issues, education and the arts. He is the founder of the Solomon Research Fellowships in LGBT Studies at Yale University and is a Professor of Clinical Psychology at Columbia University. He holds a PhD degree in Psychology from Jesus College, Cambridge and is the former President of PEN American Center. In 2021, Andrew became a lecturer at Yale Medical School.