David Roberts (climber)

Roberts was born in Denver, Colorado, on May 29, 1943. His father, Walter Orr Roberts, was an astronomer and scientist who headed the Harvard College Observatory in nearby Boulder; his mother, Janet Naomi Smock Roberts, was elected to its city council. Roberts attended Boulder High School, before studying mathematics at Harvard University, graduating in 1965. He was a member of and former president of the Harvard Mountaineering Club where he led exploratory first ascents of many peaks in Alaska. He went on to receive a Ph.D. in English from the University of Denver in 1970. ==Career==

Roberts was a professor of literature at Hampshire College, in Amherst, Massachusetts, from 1970 to 1979. He also designed the college's Outdoors Program. He ultimately authored 32 books on the subject, as well as the celebrated adventures of historical figures. These included books on the Ancestral Puebloans and a biography on Jean Stafford. Roberts also mentored other writers, most notably Jon Krakauer, who he taught at Hampshire. He contributed to Outside, as well as National Geographic, National Geographic Adventure, and The Atlantic Monthly. His final book, Into the Great Emptiness: Peril and Survival on the Greenland Ice Cap, is scheduled to be released in mid-2022, one year after his death. == Personal life ==

Roberts married Sharon Morris in 1967. They did not have children. They resided in Cambridge, Massachusetts, before moving to Watertown. Roberts died on August 20, 2021, at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. He was 78, and was diagnosed with stage IV throat cancer six years before his death. ==Bibliography==

• 2018 Boardman Tasker Prize for Mountain Literature • Prix Mediterrane • Prix du Salon de Livre de Passy • 2003 Grand Prize at Banff Mountain Book Festival, Escape from Lucania • 2001 National Geographic Adventure ranked The Mountain of My Fear and Deborah among the 100 best adventure books ever written == References ==