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bgsu monitor |
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'Things
They Carried' author to visit campus
Many BGSU students have read Tim O'Brien's book, The
Things They Carried. Now they'll have a chance to
hear the author talk about it when he visits campus Thursday
and Friday (Oct. 20 and 21).
O'Brien will give a public lecture from 7-8:30 p.m. Wednesday
(Oct. 20) in 101 Olscamp Hall, followed by a book signing
in the lobby outside.
While on campus, he will also meet with roughly 250 of
the estimated 2,500 first-year students who have read
The Things They Carried as part of this fall's Common
Reading Experience. Those attending the three small-group
sessions with O'Brien are in nine classes in the UNIV
100: University Success, General Studies Writing and BGeXperience
programs.
O'Brien's visit is underwritten by a gift to BGeXperience
from University alumni Ron and Sue Whitehouse of Harbor
Springs, Mich.
The Things They Carried is a fictional work that
depicts the men of Alpha Company who have survived their
Vietnam tour. It was a finalist for both a 1990 Pulitzer
Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award, and
received France's Prix du Meilleur Livre Etranger, the
literary prize for best foreign book. In addition to incorporating
the book into the curriculum for first-year students,
BGSU is hosting discussions and other events related to
its content throughout the semester.
O'Brien, an Army infantryman in Vietnam from February
1969 to March 1970, received the National Magazine Award
in 1987 for his initial short story, "The Things
They Carried." In 1999, the story was selected for
inclusion in The Best American Short Stories of the
Century, edited by John Updike.
O'Brien's books also include In the Lake of the Woods,
which earned the James Fenimore Cooper Prize from the
Society of American Historians and was named best novel
of 1994 by Time magazine, and Going After Cacciato,
a National Book Award-winner in fiction. His most recent
novel is July, July, published
in 2002.
The Minnesota native, whose short fiction has appeared
in numerous literary and popular magazines, has also received
awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters,
the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for
the Arts. He has been elected both to the Society of American
Historians and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Current holder of the Roy F. and Joann Cole Mitte Chair
in Creative Writing at Texas State University, O'Brien
graduated summa cum laude from Macalester College, St.
Paul, Minn., in 1968. After returning from Vietnam in
1970, he pursued graduate studies in government at Harvard
University and, from 1973-74, was a national affairs reporter
for the Washington Post. |
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