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Susan Orlean

Susan Orlean began contributing to The New Yorker in 1987 and became a staff writer in 1992. She is the author of “ On Animals .”

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12 picks · 1987–2002

Featured Picks

The Congo Sound
popular culture ·

How a record store in Paris became a center of African music.

Where’s Willy?
our far flung correspondents ·

Susan Orlean on the campaign to release Keiko, the orca whale that starred in “Free Willy,” into the wild.

Meet the Shaggs
popular chronicles ·

Susan Orlean on the legacy of the Shaggs, an eclectic female band from the sixties and seventies.

The Homesick Restaurant Run by Cuban Refugees
popular chronicles ·

From 1996: Susan Orlean on Centro Vasco, a restaurant in Miami founded by Cuban refugees, and one of the few businesses from the country that came to the U.S. virtually unchanged.

The Big Picture
popular chronicles ·

POPULAR CHRONICLES about the painter Julian Schnabel's movie about Jean Michel Basquiat called "Build a Fort, Set It on Fire." Julian's father, …

Orchid Fever
popular chronicles ·

Susan Orlean writes about how the accomplished horticulturist John Laroche became an orchid thief.

After the Party
annals of showtown ·

Susan Orlean’s profile of Sue Mengers, who was one of the most formidable agents in Hollywood.

The Tonya Harding Fan Club
popular chronicles ·

After the attack on the ice skater Nancy Kerrigan, Susan Orlean reported on the knee-clubbing scandal that preceded the 1994 Winter Olympics and implicated Harding’s ex-husband, Jeff Gillooly, and Shawn Eckhardt and Shane Stant.

Shopping at Sunshine
our local correspondents ·

Susan Orlean on the people from all over the world who worked and shopped at Sunshine Market, a grocery store in Jackson Heights, in Queens.

Living Large
profiles ·

Susan Orlean’s 1991 Profile of Fab Five Freddy, the artist, musician, and host of “Yo! MTV Raps.”

A GENTLE REIGN
profiles ·

PROFILE of Kwabena Oppong, who is the king and supreme ruler of the African Ashanti tribespeople living in the U.S.

Musher
the talk of the town ·

Susan Orlean’s Talk story, from 1987, on the Alaskan dog musher Susan Butcher.