Stephen Bonsal


Stephen Bonsal was an American journalist, war correspondent, author, diplomat, and translator, who won the 1945 Pulitzer Prize for History.

Early life

Bonsal was born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1865. He was educated at St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire. He continued his studies in Heidelberg, Bonn, and Vienna. He married Henrietta Fairfax Morris in March 1900. Bonsal traveled extensively. He claimed that he had visited all the countries of Europe, Asia, and South America.

Journalist

Bonsal was later a special correspondent of the New York Herald, reporting the development of military conflicts including:
He was a foreign correspondent for the New York Times in 1910–1911.

Diplomat

In 1891-1896, Bonsal served as secretary and chargé-d'affaire of the US diplomatic missions in Beijing, Seoul and Tokyo. He also served for a short time at the U.S. embassy in Madrid.

World War I

During World War I, Bonsal served in the American Expeditionary Forces with the rank of lieutenant colonel. Afterwards, he was President Woodrow Wilson's private translator during the 1919 Peace Conference in Paris.

Later life

Unfinished Business, a diary describing his experiences during the Paris Peace Treaty negotiations and all the Allied infighting and waxing lyrical about the plight of the wounded veterans and their families, won him the 1945 Pulitzer Prize for History.
"No one else has presented the plight of the plain people of Europe, in relation to the strained secrecy of the Conference, and few have written of their agony as does Colonel Bonsal in terms so hardheaded and so poignant".
His second son, Philip Bonsal, was a career diplomat. Another son, Dudley Bonsal was a United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Selected works