A Conversation with Tim O'Brien
Series: Art Works Podcast
From: National Endowment for the Arts
Length: 00:29:35
In 1968, Tim O'Brien was drafted into the Army at age 21. Although he opposed the war, he reported for military service, and in February of the following, he was sent to Vietnam. When he returned home, after a stint in graduate school, Tim O'Brien became a reporter for the Washington Post. In 1973, O'Brien published his memoir, If I Die in a Combat Zone. Although Vietnam and its aftermath continued to be his subject, Tim O'Brien turned from non-fiction to fiction, winning the National Book Award in 1979 for Going After Cacciato, a novel about a soldier in Vietnam who attempts to walk from southeast Asia to Paris. The Things They Carried is a work of fiction presented as a memoir. A finalist for both the 1990 Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award, The Things They Carried depicts the men of the fictional Alpha Company, including a character named Tim O'Brien, who survived his tour in Vietnam to become a father and writer at the age of forty-three.
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Piece Description
In 1968, Tim O'Brien was drafted into the Army at age 21. Although he opposed the war, he reported for military service, and in February of the following, he was sent to Vietnam. When he returned home, after a stint in graduate school, Tim O'Brien became a reporter for the Washington Post. In 1973, O'Brien published his memoir, If I Die in a Combat Zone. Although Vietnam and its aftermath continued to be his subject, Tim O'Brien turned from non-fiction to fiction, winning the National Book Award in 1979 for Going After Cacciato, a novel about a soldier in Vietnam who attempts to walk from southeast Asia to Paris. The Things They Carried is a work of fiction presented as a memoir. A finalist for both the 1990 Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award, The Things They Carried depicts the men of the fictional Alpha Company, including a character named Tim O'Brien, who survived his tour in Vietnam to become a father and writer at the age of forty-three.
Transcript
Transcript of conversation with Tim O'Brien
Tim O'Brien: The Things They Carried is in part a book about the Vietnam War, and in part it's a book about the power of stories in our lives. In part it's a book about re-imagining events and revisiting events thirty years or more after they've occurred. But and, you know, as I say each of these things it's a little bit like pulling a strand out of a piece of cloth, that in the end it's a book about all those things and the, the human heart as well.
Josephine Reed: That was writer Tim O'Brien talking about his 1990 novel, and Big Read selection The Things They Carried.
Welcome to Art works the program that goes behind the scenes with some of the nation's great artists to explore how art works, I'm your host, Josephine Reed.
In 1968, Tim O'Brien was drafted into the Army at age 21. Although he opposed the war, he reported for military servi...
Read the full transcript
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