Horwitz was born Anthony Lander Horwitz in Washington, DC, the son of Norman Harold Horwitz and Elinor Lander Horwitz, a writer of young adult and adult books. Horwitz is an alumnus of Sidwell Friends School, in Washington, DC, and graduated Phi Beta Kappa as a history major from Brown University and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

He won the 1995 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting, and 1994 James Aronson Award, for his stories about working conditions in low-wage America published in The Wall Street Journal, where he also worked as a foreign correspondent covering conflicts in Africa, Europe, and the Middle East. He also worked as a staff writer for The New Yorker.

Horwitz married the Australian writer and fellow Pulitzer recipient Geraldine Brooks in France in 1984. After formerly dividing their time between homes in Waterford, Virginia and Sydney, Australia Powells.com Interviews - Tony Horwitz, they now live with their sons Nathaniel and Bizu on Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts Author Tony Horwitz turns over Plymouth Rock with 'Voyage' - USATODAY.com.