Tracy Kidder

Author Tracy Kidder received the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award for his penetrating history of the microprocessor revolution, Soul of a New Machine. A Harvard graduate and Vietnam veteran, Tracy Kidder first won acclaim for his ability to make the events of everyday life an occasion for deeply moving observation of human relationships in books such as House, Among Schoolchildren and Home Town. In 2003, Tracy Kidder published his most powerful work yet. Mountains Beyond Mountains tells the extraordinary true story of Dr. Paul Farmer, the founder of Partners in Health, who has brought sustainable first-class health care to the most desperate communities of impoverished Haiti. Kidder's subsequent works include Strength in What remains, tells the story of a refugee from the civil war in Burundi who finds a new life in America, but then returns to give back to his native country. This podcast was recorded at the Academy of Achievement's 2001 Summit in San Antonio, Texas, while Kidder was in the midst of writing Mountains Beyond Mountains. His address to the Academy's student delegates focuses on Dr. Paul Farmer and the work he is doing in Haiti, and throughout the world to combat tuberculosis and other infectious disease.