Summer Reading Program

Biography of Tim O'Brien

Tim O'Brien is the recipient of the 1979 National Book Award for his novel Going After Cacciato. The Things They Carried received France's Prix du Meilleur Livre Etranger, a prize for best foreign book. The book was also a finalist for both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Award. A native of Minnesota, the author served as a foot soldier in Vietnam from 1969 to 1970, after which he pursued graduate studies in government at Harvard and later worked as a national affairs reporter for the Washington Post. He is now completing his latest book, July, July, to be published in Fall 2002 by Houghton Mifflin.