Charles Bowden Papers

Charles "Chuck" Bowden (1945-2014), literary journalist, was born outside of Chicago and raised in Tucson, Arizona, where he lived until 2009. The author of over twenty books; contributing editor for GQ, Esquire, and Mother Jones; and contributor for Harper's Magazine, The New York Times Book Review, Aperture, and many other newspapers and magazines, including regional, national, and international publications; Bowden wrote and published widely and extensively on topics including the Arizona desert and environmental protection, corruption in politics, and drugs and violence along the U.S.­–Mexico border, especially in Juárez. He is perhaps best known for "While You Were Sleeping," Harper's Magazine, Dec. 1996, which broke the story of violent deaths of women in the border town of Juárez, Mexico in the U.S. English speaking press.

After earning a Master's degree in American Intellectual History and completing doctoral work at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, Bowden returned to Tucson in 1973. In 1981, he landed a job as a reporter at the Tucson Citizen, where he reported on sex crimes and violence–jobs others refused to take. Bowden and his friend Dick Vonier founded and edited a weekly magazine, City Magazine, which ran from 1986-1989 and covered local issues from a progressive point of view.

An avid hiker and outdoorsman, Bowden also wrote extensively about the environment and championed causes such as the Sonoran Desert Park Project. Both Frog Mountain Blues (1987) and Blue Desert (1986), as well as and several photography books for which he wrote essays, including The Sonoran Desert (1992) and the Secret Forest (1993) came out of this connection with the land of the Southwest.

After "While You Were Sleeping," Bowden collaborated with street photographers who were covering crime scenes for daily Juárez papers for Juárez: Laboratory of Our Future (1998). During this time he made friends and contacts who helped him write on drugs and violence on the US­–Mexico border for the next eighteen years, including Down by the River (2004), Some of the Dead are Still Breathing: Living in the Future (2009), Dreamland: the Way out of Juárez (2010), Murder City: Ciudad Juárez and the Global Economy's New Killing Fields (2010), El Sicario: The Autobiography of a Mexican Assassin (2011), as well as numerous magazine and newspaper articles.

Bowden Chronology

• 1945 Born, Joliet, Illinois
• 1948 Age 3, moved from the family farm to Chicago Age 12, moved to Tucson, Arizona
• 1966 BA in History from the University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona
• 1967 MA, American Intellectual History from the University of Wisconsin–Madison
• 1968-1970 Doctoral work at the University of Wisconsin–Madison
• 1970 Instructor at the University of Illinois at Chicago
• 1973-1974 Researcher at the University of Arizona, Office of Arid Land Studies
• 1976-1978 Grant Director for NEH grants at KUAT Television, Tucson, Arizona
• 1981-1983 Crime reporter at Tucson Citizen
• 1986-1989 Co-founded and co-edited City Magazine with Dick VonierFreelance writer
• 2014 Passed away August 31, Las Cruces, New Mexico

Awards