Sebastian Junger

Sebastian Junger is the son of a painter and a physicist—the latter, his father, having emigrated from Dresden, Germany, during World War II. Junger received his B.A. degree in cultural anthropology from Wesleyan University. An interest in dangerous jobs prompted him to research commercial fishing, which led to his bestselling The Perfect Storm. Junger has contributed articles to publications such as Vanity Fair, and he also won a major broadcasting award for a piece on the United States’s war in Afghanistan for ABC’s Nightline in 2008. His documentary Restrepo, which is meant to give soldiers’ perspective on life in the deadly Korengal Valley, was nominated for an Academy Award, and the related, award-winning book War (2010) focuses on the U.S. Army platoon alongside whom Junger spent a year gathering research. His other books include A Death in Belmont, which speculates on the identity of the 1960s Boston Strangler, and Tribe (2016), which looks at the assimilation of veterans back into society after combat. Junger is married and, in 2016, became a father at 55 when his daughter was born.