Education
Doerr attended the nearby University School, where he graduated in 1991. He then majored in history at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, where he graduated in 1995, and earned an MFA from Bowling Green State University.
Doerr attended the nearby University School, where he graduated in 1991. He then majored in history at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, where he graduated in 1995, and earned an MFA from Bowling Green State University.
Doerr's first published book was a collection of short stories called The Shell Collector (2002). Many of the stories take place in Africa and New Zealand, where he has worked and lived. He wrote another book of short stories called Memory Wall (2010). His first novel, About Grace, was released in 2004. Doerr then wrote a memoir, Four Seasons in Rome, which was published in 2007.
Doerr's second novel, All the Light We Cannot See, set in occupied France during World War II, was published in 2014. It received significant critical acclaim and was a finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction. The book was a New York Times bestseller and was named by the newspaper as a notable book of 2014. It won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2015.
Doerr also writes a column on science books for the Boston Globe and is a contributor to The Morning News, an online magazine.
From 2007 to 2010, he was the writer-in-residence for the state of Idaho.
Doerr is married, has twin sons and lives in Boise, Idaho.