My Take
Don Winslow is one of those writers who makes you genuinely angry at how good he is. Born in New York on Halloween 1953 — very on-brand for a guy who spends his career dragging the darkest corners of American crime into the light — he spent decades building toward his masterpiece run: the Cartel Trilogy. The Power of the Dog, The Cartel, and The Border are as close to a Great American Novel about the War on Drugs as anything out there, and I say that without reservation. He doesn't flinch, he doesn't moralize cheaply, and he clearly did the kind of obsessive research only a Scorpio could sustain. The Shamus Award in 2000 and the German Crime Fiction Award in 2011 confirm that both sides of the Atlantic caught on. When he announced he was retiring from fiction to focus on political activism, I was honestly heartbroken — but also kind of awed that he walked away at the peak of his powers to go fight a different fight.
Overview
Don Winslow (born October 31, 1953) is an American author best known for his crime novels including Savages, The Force and the Cartel Trilogy.
1. Profile
- Name (English)
- Don Winslow
- Name (Japanese)
- ドン・ウィンズロウ
- Reading
- どん・うぃんずろう
- Born
- October 31, 1953 (age 72)
- Zodiac / Chinese zodiac
- Scorpio / Snake
- Origin
- New York City, New York, United States
- Blood type
- Private
- Height
- Private
- Agency
- Private
- Occupation
- screenwriter / novelist / writer / actor / director
2. Background
- Elementary school
- Private
- Junior high
- Private
- High school
- Private
- University
- University of Nebraska–Lincoln
Awards & achievements
- 2011 German Crime Fiction Award
- 2000 Shamus Award
3. Relationships
- Spouse
- Private
- Children
- Private
- Parents
- Private
- Siblings
- Private
4. Personality
Motto
Private
6. Links
7. About this entry
Tags
- Last updated
- 2026-06-02
Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public items are marked "Private / Unknown". English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.