Backgrounder: Robin Marantz Henig

By Mary Kearl

Robin Marantz Henig
Robin Marantz Henig. Photo courtesy of Houghton Mifflin.

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Lecture: Robin Marantz Henig

In an article she wrote about incurable diseases, Robin Marantz Henig admitted that she wouldn't want to know if she had a gene that predisposed her to having an incurable disease. Even so, said Henig, she is "committed to the idea that knowledge is always better than ignorance."

As a science writer, she lives that ideal, often covering subjects that are controversial and, in some cases, taboo. A freelance journalist and author of eight books, including the critically acclaimed novel The Monk in the Garden: The Lost and Found Genius of Gregor Mendel, Henig has written about senility, stem cell research, cloning, the best way to die, the psychological effects of adoption, the categorization of eating disorders, and the effects of erasing memory.

Critics have applauded her intellectual curiosity and her zeal to share her discoveries. The Monk in the Garden (2001) was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and in 2005, Henig won the Outstanding Book Award from the American Society of Journalists and Authors (ASJA) for Pandora's Baby: How the First Test Tube Babies Sparked the Reproductive Revolution. In addition, the ASJA honored Henig with the June Roth Memorial Award for medical writing for what the society's website calls her "brilliantly insightful" feature, "The Quest to Forget," published in The New York Times Magazine in 2001.

In this article Henig delves into the dilemma of erasing memories. In the end she declares that "a person crippled by memories is a diminished person." She concludes emphatically that only a society "with a twisted notion of what being human really means" would keep such people burdened by their memories.

Henig received her B.A. from Cornell University in 1973 and her M.S. at Northwestern's School of Journalism in 1974. She has been writing journalism since 1974, and has been freelancing since 1980. Her byline has appeared in The New York Times, USA Today, The Washington Post, Scientific American, Discover, Self, and Woman's Day, among other publications.

Most recently, Henig co-edited the new edition of The Field Guide for Science Writers, published by Oxford University Press in 2005. Also released this year, Harper Collins's Best American Science Writing 2005 includes an article by Henig on genetics.

Her writing often weaves personal narrative and scientific insight, as in the New York Times Magazine article where Henig details what it’s like to lose your sense of smell—a loss she experienced. When she was able to smell cut grass for the first time again, wrote Henig, "It made me cry. The tears embarrassed me..." Nonetheless, for her, and the reader, those tears were "a visceral connection to the person I used to be." Such self-revelations go to the heart of who she is, as a writer, and forge a powerful link between her subject matter and her audience.

Mary Kearl is a sophomore double majoring in print journalism and history.

Sources

RELATED SOURCES

  • "Will We Ever Arrive at the Good Death?" The New York Times, Aug. 21, 2005.

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