Tim O’Brien

Tim O’Brien (born October 1, 1946, Austin, Minnesota, U.S.) is an American novelist noted for his writings about American soldiers in the Vietnam War. His best-known work is the novel The Things They Carried (1990). (Read Britannica’s essay “War Stories: 13 Modern Writers Who Served in War.”) O’Brien was the son of a schoolteacher and an insurance salesman who had served in World War II. After studying political science at Macalester College in St. Paul,...