I was born in March 1938 in the small town of Carcassonne in the south of France. Later, and until I was two years old, I lived in Toulouse, another city in Southern France, where my parents were high school teachers, my father in physics and my mother in economics. But war loomed on the…

I was born in New York City, but grew up across the Hudson River in Alpine, New Jersey. With fewer than a thousand residents, Alpine was too small to have its own secondary schools, so I attended junior high and high school in the town of Tenafly, three miles down the road. At Tenafly High,…

Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen. The three of us (Mario Capecchi, Martin Evans and myself) thank the Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet and the Nobel Foundation for honoring us today. And we thank our students and collaborators, whose help was indispensable in our research. But we also…

German 7. Dezember 2007 Den Nobelpreis nicht gewinnen Ich stehe in einem Türrahmen und blicke durch wehende Staubwolken dorthin, wo es noch Wald gibt, der nicht abgeholzt worden ist, wie ich höre. Gestern bin ich meilenweit an Baumstümpfen und verkohlten Flächen vorbeigefahren, wo ’56 der wunderbarste Wald stand, den ich je gesehen habe; jetzt ist…

English December 7, 2007 On not winning the Nobel Prize I am standing in a doorway looking through clouds of blowing dust to where I am told there is still uncut forest. Yesterday I drove through miles of stumps, and charred remains of fires where, in ’56, there was the most wonderful forest I have…

Swedish Utdrag ur Gräset sjunger MYSTISKT MORD Av tidningens specielle medarbetare Mary Turner, hustru till lantbrukaren Richard Turner i Ngesi, hittades i går morse mördad på verandan till sitt hem. Familjens houseboy, som erkänt sig skyldig till brottet, har arresterats. Motivet har ännu icke klarlagts. Man förmodar att han försökt komma över värdeföremål. Det stod…

French Le 7 décembre 2007 Comment ne pas gagner le prix Nobel Postée sur le pas de la porte, je regarde, entre des nuages de poussière volante, dans la direction où il reste encore des forêts sur pied, c’est ce qu’on m’a dit. Hier, j’ai parcouru en voiture des kilomètres de souches d’arbres et de…

more

Swedish 7 December 2007 Om att inte få Nobelpriset Jag står i dörren och ser genom yrande dammoln åt det håll där det ska finnas skog som fortfarande står orörd. I går körde jag kilometer efter kilometer genom kalhyggen och förkolnade brandrester efter en skog som 1956 var den vackraste jag någonsin sett men nu…

English Excerpt from The Grass is Singing MURDER MYSTERY By Special Correspondent Mary Turner, wife of Richard Turner, a farmer at Ngesi, was found murdered on the front veranda of their homestead yester­day morning. The houseboy, who has been arrested, has con­fessed to the crime. No motive has been discovered. It is thought he was…