Tracy Kidder, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author who brought readers inside the worlds of computer engineering, home construction, and global health care, has died at 80. His daughter, Alice Kidder Bukhman, and son, Nat Kidder, said he died of lung cancer at their home in Boston. Kidder's immersive narratives stood apart in an era of quick hits and hot takes.

Kidder's breakthrough 1981 book, 'The Soul of a New Machine,' won both the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award, introducing readers to the computer industry just as the PC revolution was gaining momentum. He spent months embedded with engineers at Data General Corporation, relying on his subjects to teach him the technology. 'It was the people themselves,' Kidder said, 'their incredible passion for this thing.' His 1985 book 'House' explored the process of home-building, while 'Mountains Beyond Mountains' chronicled Dr. Paul Farmer's work in global health care.

Born in Manhattan in 1945, Kidder attended Harvard and served in Vietnam before finding his voice in narrative journalism. His career was shaped by his longtime editor Richard Todd, with whom he later co-authored 'Good Prose: The Art of Nonfiction.' Kidder's work, which included 'Among Schoolchildren' and 'My Detachment,' demonstrated how deep reporting and novelistic prose could illuminate the human stories behind complex subjects.