Honigsbaum, Mark

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HONIGSBAUM, Mark

PERSONAL: Born in London, England; married; two children. Education: New College.

ADDRESSES: Home—London, England. Agent—c/o Author Mail, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 19 Union Square West, New York, NY 10003.

CAREER: Observer, London, England, former chief reporter; writer.

WRITINGS:

The Fever Trail: In Search of the Cure for Malaria, Farrar, Straus & Giroux (New York, NY), 2002.

Contributor to Guardian, Sunday Times, Gentlemen's Quarterly, and Vogue.

SIDELIGHTS: In his first book The Fever Trail: In Search of the Cure for Malaria, Mark Honigsbaum reveals the history of malaria and the drug that cures it. Malaria, a disease that is spread to humans by mosquitoes, spread quickly throughout the world by European explorers and by slaves, who brought the disease with them from South America and Africa. The only cure for malaria before 1900 was quinine, which comes from the bark of the rare cinchona tree located in the Andes region of South America. In The Fever Trail Honigsbaum retraces the routes of three explorers in search of the cinchona tree. Those nineteenth-century explorers were Richard Spruce, a botanist; Charles Ledger, a trader; and Sir Clements Markham, an historian. Their goal was to find the tree and take seeds from it to transplant in India and the island of Java. Library Journal contributor Kathy Arsenault claimed, "Both a gripping adventure tale and a sobering reminder of malaria's continuing impact."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

African Business, February, 2002, Stephen Williams, review of The Fever Trail: In Search of the Cure for Malaria, p. 49.

Kirkus Reviews, March 1, 2002, review of The Fever Trail, p. 309.

Library Journal, April 1, 2002, Kathy Arsenault, review of The Fever Trail, p. 130.

Mother Jones, May-June, 2002, Paul Taylor, "The Silent Plutocracy," p. 77.

Publishers Weekly, April 8, 2002, review of The Fever Trail, p. 218.

Scientific American, June, 2002, Claire Panosian Dunavan, "Men, Money, and Malaria: In the Quest for a Cure, Idealism Fell Victim to Greed," p. 102.

Spectator, November 24, 2001, Andrew Barrow, review of The Fever Trail, p. 45.

ONLINE

Guardian Unlimited,http://books.guardian.co.uk/ (June 3, 2002), Robin McKie, "Barking for Bite."

Written Voices,http://www.writtenvoices.com/ (July 22, 2002), "Featured Author Mark Honigsbaum Author of The Fever Trail."*