Tim O'Brien (author)

Tim O'Brien (born October 1, 1946) is an American author who served as a soldier in the Vietnam War. Much of his writing is about wartime Vietnam, and his work later in life often explores the postwar lives of its veterans. O'Brien is perhaps best known for his book The Things They Carried (1990), a collection of linked semi-autobiographical short stories inspired by his wartime experiences. It was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and a 2006 New York Times poll named it one of the best works of American fiction of the last twenty-five years. In 2010, the paper described it as "a classic of contemporary war fiction". His war novel Going After Cacciato (1978) was awarded the National Book Award. O'Brien taught creative writing, holding the endowed chair at the MFA program of Texas State University–San Marcos every other academic year from 2003 to 2012.