Tim O’Brien
Novelist
Tim O'Brien is an American novelist. His books include the National Book Award-winning "Going After Cacciato" (1978), as well as his debut novel, "If I Die in a Combat Zone, Box Me Up and Ship Me Home" (1973); his most recent novel, "July, July" (2002); and the Pulitzer Prize finalist "The Things They Carried" (1990), a combination novel/short story collection/memoir based on his experiences in the Vietnam War. A special twentieth anniversary edition of "The Things They Carried" was released by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in 2010.
The author and former vet wishes war movies could give audiences a taste of reality, and that warmongering politicians would risk their own lives on the front lines.
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7 min
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What burdens does the author of “The Things They Carried” still bear?
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3 min
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Reflections on the younger generation, and on growing old.
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4 min
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The author and former veteran sees none of his generation’s “edgy,” questioning attitude in the modern military.
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3 min
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The rebellious anger of the Vietnam era hasn’t stopped war. In fact, “a slight stink of the hip” now surrounds our cultural memory of the event.
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6 min
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Writing about dead loved ones can’t bring them back—or even preserve their memories, really. But it’s something.
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3 min
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For Tim O’Brien, “true war stories” can be lies, or take place years before or after a war. Here he shares one that made him want to cry—and reminds him […]
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4 min
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Part of a writer’s job is to puncture our clichés about subjects like love and war with irony, edge, and ridicule.
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5 min
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How to convey the horror of war to someone who’s never witnessed it? It’s language, not the pain of remembering, that makes the task so hard.
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6 min
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Two decades after his masterpiece, the author reflects on war, fatherhood, and the passage of time that’s made him feel like “a stranger to the person who wrote that book.”
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5 min
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Writing never gets easier, but there are certain mistakes writers can learn to avoid.
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2 min
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A conversation with the National Book Award-winning writer.
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46 min
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