About Jonathan Yardley

Jonathan Yardley (born October 27, 1939) was the book critic at The Washington Post from 1981 to December 2014, and held the same post from 1978 to 1981 at the Washington Star. In 1981, he received the Pulitzer Prize for Criticis

Yardley was born on October 27, 1939 in Pittsburgh and spent his childhood in Chatham, Virginia. His father, William Woolsey Yardley, was a teacher of English and the classics, as well as an Episcopal minister and a headmaster at two East Coast private schools. His mother was Helen Gregory Yardley.

Yardley graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. There, he was a member of St. Anthony Hall and was the editor of the student newspaper, The Daily Tar Heel, in 1961