Larissa MacFarquhar (born 1968) is an American writer known for her profiles in The New Yorker.
She is the daughter of the sinologist Roderick MacFarquhar.
[1] She was born in London, and moved to the United States at the age of 16.
[2] MacFarquhar has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 1998[3] and has written profiles on Barack Obama, Derek Parfit, Hilary Mantel, Robert Gottlieb, Richard Posner, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Chelsea Manning and Aaron Swartz, among others.
[4] Her 2015 book Strangers Drowning: Impossible Idealism, Drastic Choices, and the Urge to Help explores the motivations of people who take altruism to extremes.