O'Brien has written a vital important book-a book that matters not only to the reader
interested in Vietnam but to anyone interested in the craft of writing as well.-Michiko
Kakutani New York Times A classic work of American literature that has not stopped changing
minds and lives since it burst onto the literary scene The Things They Carried is a
ground-breaking meditation on war memory imagination and the redemptive power of
storytelling. The Things They Carried depicts the men of Alpha Company: Jimmy Cross Henry
Dobbins Rat Kiley Mitchell Sanders Norman Bowker Kiowa and the character Tim O'Brien who
has survived his tour in Vietnam to become a father and writer at the age of forty-three.
Taught everywhere-from high school classrooms to graduate seminars in creative writing-it has
become required reading for any American and continues to challenge readers in their
perceptions of fact and fiction war and peace courage and fear and longing. The Things They
Carried won France's prestigious Prix du Meilleur Livre Etranger and the Chicago Tribune
Heartland Prize it was also a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics
Circle Award.
