Author Biography | Interview | Books by this Author | Read-Alikes
Dan Koeppel is a well-known outdoors, nature, and adventure writer who has written for the New York Times Magazine, Outside, Audubon, Popular Science, and National Geographic Adventure, where he is a contributing editor. He has written two books: To See Every Bird on Earth and Banana: The Fate of the Fruit that Changed the World. Koeppel has also appeared on CNN and Good Morning America, and is a former commentator for Public Radio International's Marketplace.
Dan Koeppel's website
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What initially got you interested in writing about the
Banana?
I read a small article in a science journal about an incurable
disease that - even though the general public hadn’t heard of it - had the
potential to destroy the world’s banana crop. I ended up with a magazine
assignment, and wrote a story on the disease. I love bananas, and I couldn’t
believe that they could disappear.
Is it true that the bananas we eat now are not the same as
the bananas from fifty years ago?
That’s right. The banana our grandparents ate was a different -
and most people say better tasting - breed called the Gros Michel. But that
banana was wiped out by a variant of the blight, called Panama Disease, that now
threatens our version of the fruit, called the Cavendish.
Is it really possible that the banana could one day be
extinct?
The Cavendish banana was adopted because it was immune to Panama
Disease. But bananas are generally very weak, because, like human identical
twins, each one is an exact genetic duplicate of the other. What makes one
banana sick makes all bananas sick. So if something really virulent comes along,
it can be a huge problem.
What are Banana Republics?
...
Nicholas A. Basbanes is an award-winning investigative journalist and was literary editor of the Worcester Sunday Telegram. His articles have appeared in The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, and ... (more)
Barbara Freese is an Assistant Attorney General of Minnesota. She is known for her debut Coal: A Human History.
Freese not only helped enforce her state's environmental laws but also became fascinated by the very substance ...
(more)
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