Tim O’Brien

Tim O’Brien was born in 1946 in Austin, Minnesota, but he spent most of his childhood in the neighboring city of Worthington, Minnesota. Growing up, he showed great interest in nature and travel, two themes that echo throughout his novels and short stories. O’Brien studied political science in college. In 1968, shortly after graduating, he was drafted into the army and deployed to Vietnam, where he served for nearly two years. O’Brien was a member of the division that was involved in the infamous My Lai Massacre (see below), although O’Brien himself arrived in Vietnam almost a year after this incident occurred. Following his military service, he studied writing at Harvard University, In 1973, he began his career as a writer by publishing the memoir If I Die in a Combat Zone, Box Me Up and Ship Me Home. The book received a small but impressive amount of critical acclaim, and has been called the best book ever written about Vietnam. O’Brien continued to write novels and short stories throughout the 70s and 80s, most of which either revolved around or alluded to the Vietnam War. His 1978 novel Going After Cacciato was critically acclaimed, and won the National Book Award, one of the highest honors available to an American writer. In the 80s, O’Brien was an energetic activist for better treatment of military veterans, and criticized the American government’s lopsided take on its military action overseas. In 1990, O’Brien published the book for which he’s best known, The Things They Carried. A collection of short stories about Vietnam, many of which O’Brien had written and published in the previous decade, the book received great acclaim, and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. Since 1990, O’Brien has published three novels: In the Lake of the Woods, Tomcat in Love, and July, July, the latter two of which are much lighter in tone than his previous works.