Ben Ehrenreich

Ben Ehrenreich (born 1972) is an American freelance journalist and novelist who lives in Los Angeles.

Career Ehrenreich began working as a journalist in the alternative press in the late 1990s, publishing extensively in LA Weekly and The Village Voice. His journalism, essays, and criticism have since appeared in Harper's, The New York Times Magazine, The Nation, the Los Angeles Times, The Believer, and the London Review of Books. He has reported from Afghanistan, Haiti, Cambodia, El Salvador, Mexico, and all over the United States. In 2011, he received a National Magazine Award in feature writing for an article published in Los Angeles magazine.

His first novel, The Suitors, was published by Counterpoint Press in 2006. Reviewing it, the American Library Association named him "a writer to watch" while Publishers Weekly called him "an original talent". Writing in BOMB, the novelist Frederic Tuten called The Suitors "truly a ravishing book". Ehrenreich's short fiction has appeared in McSweeney's, BOMB, Black Clock, and many other publications.

Ehrenreich teaches in the graduate writing program at Otis College of Art and Design.

Ehrenreich's book The Way to the Spring: Life and Death in Palestine was published in 2016. It describes life in the Palestinian village of Nabi Salih and the villagers' struggle against the encroaching Israeli settlement of Halamish. The Economist praised the book, writing, "It should be read by friends and foes of Israel alike." A review in The New York Times called it a "weighty contribution to the Palestinian side of the scales of history."

In 2020, Ehrenreich released Desert Notebooks: A Road Map for the End of Time. The Los Angeles Times called the book "a hybrid memoir, travelogue and metaphysical enquiry." The New York Times wrote that Ehrenreich has "built a potent memorial to our own ongoing end-times."

Personal Ehrenreich is the son of best-selling author Barbara Ehrenreich (Nickel and Dimed) and psychologist John Ehrenreich, and his sister is law professor Rosa Brooks.

Written works