Patrick Radden Keefe

Patrick Radden Keefe
Keefe in 2009
Born	1976 (age 49–50)
Occupation	Journalist
Nationality	American
Alma mater	Columbia University (BA) University of Cambridge (MPhil) London School of Economics (MSc) Yale Law School (JD)
Genre	Investigative journalism
Notable works	Say Nothing and Empire of Pain
Notable awards	Baillie Gifford Prize (2021) Orwell Prize (2019) National Book Critics Circle Award (2019)

Patrick Radden Keefe (born 1976) is an American writer and investigative journalist. He is the author of five books—Chatter, The Snakehead, Say Nothing, Empire of Pain, and Rogues—and has written extensively for many publications, including The New Yorker, Slate, and The New York Times Magazine. He is a staff writer at The New Yorker.

Early life and education

Keefe was born in 1976. He is the son of Frank Keefe, an urban planner and former Secretary of Administration and Finance of Massachusetts for governor Michael S. Dukakis, and Jennifer Radden, a professor of philosophy at University of Massachusetts Boston. His great-grandparents were Irish immigrants from Donegal. Keefe grew up in Dorchester, Massachusetts and attended Milton Academy.

He received his B.A. in history from Columbia University in 1999 where he was a resident of Schapiro Hall. He won a Marshall Scholarship in 1999. He then obtained a M.Phil. in international relations from Cambridge University at Hughes Hall and a M.Sc. in new media and informations systems from the London School of Economics. He then returned to the U.S. and earned a J.D. degree from Yale Law School. He passed the bar in 2005.

He has since received many fellowships, including those from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library.

Career

Keefe began writing and submitting articles to newspapers and magazines in 1998. In 2004, he received a New York Public Library fellowship and took a year off of law school to write his first book Chatter. After Keefe finished law school, he briefly worked as a Hollywood screenwriter. He then became a fellow for the Century Foundation. From 2010 to 2011, he was a policy adviser in the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

In 2012, Keefe was hired full time by The New Yorker. His investigative reporting has covered a broad range of topics including drug trafficking and legalization, organized crime mass surveillance, modern American politics, The Troubles, the opioid epidemic, and financial crime. Notably, he has turned several of his New Yorker articles into non-fiction books.

Keefe is the host of the 2020 podcast Wind of Change, which explores a rumor that the song "Wind of Change" by the Scorpions was secretly written by the CIA, rather than by the band's lead singer, Klaus Meine. Keefe won the 2021 Ambies award for "Best Podcast Host".

In 2025, Keefe was hired by J.Crew for a modeling campaign. The New York Times wrote that "Keefe has achieved a level of celebrity that most of his literary peers have probably never even considered: He has been a fashion model."

Books

Chatter: Dispatches From the Secret World Of Global Eavesdropping (2005)

Keefe describes how American security agencies, including the National Security Agency, eavesdrop on communications between people suspected of involvement in terrorism to determine the likelihood of terrorist attacks in the near future. Keefe describes the electronic intelligence-gathering apparatus for detecting this communication, often called "chatter", and examines it in the context of the September 11 attacks. In a review of the book for The New York Times, William Grimes wrote, "Mr. Keefe writes, crisply and entertainingly, as an interested private citizen rather than an expert."

The Snakehead: An Epic Tale of the Chinatown Underworld and the American Dream (2009)

Keefe's The Snakehead reported on Cheng Chui Ping and her Snakehead gang in New York City, which operated between 1984 and 2000. The book focuses on the 1993 Golden Venture incident in which a cargo ship smuggling 286 undocumented Chinese ran aground, ultimately killing ten passengers. Keefe describes how Ping illegally smuggled immigrants from China into the U.S. on a massive scale through cargo ships. The book includes interviews with several of those immigrants, who describe their lives in the U.S. In 2000, Ping was arrested by the U.S. government and sentenced to 35 years in prison for her part in leading these operations. Janet Maslin of the New York Times called The Snakehead a "formidably well-researched book that is as much a paean to its author's industriousness as it is a chronicle of crime."

Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland (2018)

Say Nothing focuses on The Troubles in Northern Ireland, beginning with the 1972 abduction and murder of Jean McConville. Keefe began researching and writing the book after reading Dolours Price's obituary in 2013. He travelled to Ireland seven times over the course of four weeks while writing the book, interviewing over 100 people. The book was subsequently adapted into a miniseries of the same name in 2024 on FX on Hulu.

Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty (2021)

In April 2021, his book Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty was published by Doubleday. The book examines the Sackler family and their responsibility in the manufacturing of the painkiller OxyContin by Purdue Pharma. It is an extension of his 2017 New Yorker article "The Family That Built an Empire of Pain."

Personal life

Keefe is married to international financial-crime policy lawyer Justyna Gudzowska. They met while they were both studying at Cambridge and later studied at Yale together.

Awards and accolades

Year	Award	Category	Nominee	Result	Ref.
2006	Guggenheim Fellowship		Patrick Radden Keefe	Won
2012	Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship			Won
2014	National Magazine Awards	Feature Writing	"A Loaded Gun"	Won
2015		Reporting	"The Hunt for El Chapo"	Nominated
2016			“Where the Bodies Are Buried"	Nominated
2019	National Book Award	Nonfiction	Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland	Nominated
	National Book Critics Circle Award	Nonfiction		Won
	Orwell Prize	Political Writing		Won
2020	Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence	Nonfiction		Nominated
	Arthur Ross Book Award	Gold Medal		Won
2021	Ambies	Best Podcast Host	Wind of Change – Patrick Radden Keefe	Won
		Best Reporting		Won
		Best Scriptwriting, Nonfiction		Won
	Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction		Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty	Won
	Financial Times Business Book of the Year Award			Nominated
	Goodreads Choice Awards	History & Biography		Won
2022	Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence	Nonfiction		Nominated
	J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize			Nominated
2025	Peabody Awards	Entertainment Honoree	Say Nothing	Won
	USC Scripter Awards	Episodic Series	Say Nothing - Patrick Radden Keefe and Joshua Zetumer (for "The People in the Dirt")	Won