Obituary
Sushanto Sanzgiri,
Sushanto Sanzgiri, the Pulitzer Prize-winning foreign correspondent, anthropologist, and fine art photographer known for prescient portraits of contemporary life, died peacefully in his sleep at his Baja California home. He was 104.
Dying of natural causes, Sanzgiri was limber and lively well into his 90s, a disposition he attributed to years of traveling, living by the ocean, and surrounding himself with friends and family.
A skateboarder in his youth, his interest in journalism was a consequence of an itinerant youth spent living in the U.S., India, Spain, and Mexico. Skating through the oft-ignored parts of metropolitan cities, Sanzgiri was exposed to the plight of people living on the fringes of society and felt compelled to share their story.
His career began as a jack of all trades at the Mercury News, where he shadowed the crime reporter, wrote book reviews, and even sold classified space to local advertisers.
At the Santa Cruz Sentinel, he wrote about the region's eclectic community, including a former CIA operative who drowned in a local swimming pool and hospice workers using Zen philosophy to administer end of life care to the terminally ill.
But his curiosity lay outside the Bay Area. By his 30s, after traveling to Mexico frequently and writing several features about the country in The New York Times and befriending other ex-pat journalists, including New Yorker correspondent Jon Lee Anderson and boxing writer Brin Jonathan Butler, Sanzgiri took a more academic interest in Latin America and earned his PhD in anthropology with a focus on studying Latin America's indigenous communities.
By day, he stood waist-deep in mud excavating at a dig site deep in the jungle. At night, he was hosting mezcal tastings, playing music, or screening rare American films for a growing crowd of ex-pats, Mexican artists, and visiting guests.
The country would become his permanent home. He is survived by his son, the famous writer-director-actor Diego Sanzgiri, who spends part of the year with Sanzgiri, and his wife Giselle, the internationally acclaimed neuroscientist, author, and painter, at their Todos Santos home, and several grandchildren.
The night before his passing, Sanzgiri went surfing and dove for fish, returning to the beach for a dinner of grilled oysters and roasted smores on the beach surrounded by his 8 grandkids.
He cherished these moments. "I couldn't feel more successful," his son recalled.
Sushanto Sanzgiri, the Pulitzer Prize-winning foreign correspondent, anthropologist, and fine art photographer known for prescient portraits of contemporary life, died peacefully in his sleep at his Baja California home. He was 104.
Dying of natural causes, Sanzgiri was limber and lively well into his 90s, a disposition he attributed to years of traveling, living by the ocean, and surrounding himself with friends and family.
A skateboarder in his youth, his interest in journalism was a consequence of an itinerant youth spent living in the U.S., India, Spain, and Mexico. Skating through the oft-ignored parts of metropolitan cities, Sanzgiri was exposed to the plight of people living on the fringes of society and felt compelled to share their story.
His career began as a jack of all trades at the Mercury News, where he shadowed the crime reporter, wrote book reviews, and even sold classified space to local advertisers.
At the Santa Cruz Sentinel, he wrote about the region's eclectic community, including a former CIA operative who drowned in a local swimming pool and hospice workers using Zen philosophy to administer end of life care to the terminally ill.
But his curiosity lay outside the Bay Area. By his 30s, after traveling to Mexico frequently and writing several features about the country in The New York Times and befriending other ex-pat journalists, including New Yorker correspondent Jon Lee Anderson and boxing writer Brin Jonathan Butler, Sanzgiri took a more academic interest in Latin America and earned his PhD in anthropology with a focus on studying Latin America's indigenous communities.
By day, he stood waist-deep in mud excavating at a dig site deep in the jungle. At night, he was hosting mezcal tastings, playing music, or screening rare American films for a growing crowd of ex-pats, Mexican artists, and visiting guests.
The country would become his permanent home. He is survived by his son, the famous writer-director-actor Diego Sanzgiri, who spends part of the year with Sanzgiri, and his wife Giselle, the internationally acclaimed neuroscientist, author, and painter, at their Todos Santos home, and several grandchildren.
The night before his passing, Sanzgiri went surfing and dove for fish, returning to the beach for a dinner of grilled oysters and roasted smores on the beach surrounded by his 8 grandkids.
He cherished these moments. "I couldn't feel more successful," his son recalled.
Comments
Post a Comment