Larry Heinemann
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Larry Heinemann | |
|---|---|
| Born | Larry Curtis Heinemann January 18, 1944 Chicago, Illinois, US |
| Died | December 11, 2019 (aged 75) Bryan, Texas, U.S. |
| Occupation | Novelist, memoirist |
| Period | 1977–2019 |
| Genre | War |
| Subject | Vietnam War |
| Notable awards | National Book Award 1987 |
Larry Curtis Heinemann (January 18, 1944 – December 11, 2019) was an American novelist born and raised in Chicago. His published work – three novels and a memoir – is primarily concerned with the Vietnam War.
Heinemann served a combat tour as a conscripted draftee in the Vietnam War from 1967 to 1968 with the 25th Infantry Division, and described himself as the most ordinary of soldiers.
He received a B.A. from Columbia College, Chicago in 1971, taught creative writing there for fifteen years, and meanwhile wrote his own first and second novels. In 1986 he resigned over a furious argument about nepotism and academic freedom.[1] Paco's Story was published later that year.
Afterward Heinemann received literature fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, and a Fulbright Scholarship to research Vietnamese folklore, legends, and mythology at Huế University. He also taught on the faculty of the University of Southern California in the Masters of Professional Writing Program. He worked as Texas A&M University's Writer in Residence until his retirement in 2015. He died December 11, 2019, of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in Bryan, Texas.[2]
