Vietnam War
Explore the history and lasting social impacts of the Vietnam War in this curated list of titles focused on the 20-year conflict. Through real-life accounts as well as historical fiction and poetry, a diverse group of authors examines the conflict in Vietnam, which lasted from 1955 to 1975, as well as the anti-war movement that erupted in the United States.
Philip Caputo’s 1977 memoir, A Rumor of War, depicts Caputo’s true experiences serving as a Marine during the Vietnam War. Lieutenant Caputo arrived in Vietnam in March 1965, with the first fighting troops assigned to combat there, and soon learned that his romantic notions of war bore no resemblance to the bloody brutality he and his men confront in fighting the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese Army. As well as acknowledging the dehumanizing brutality... Read A Rumor of War: The Classic Vietnam Memoir Summary
Born on the Fourth of July is a 1976 memoir written by wounded Vietnam veteran and antiwar activist Ron Kovic. The memoir was adapted into a 1989 film directed by Oliver Stone; Kovic and Stone co-wrote the screenplay, which earned an Oscar nomination. In the memoir, Kovic describes his experiences in and surrounding his tours of duty in Vietnam, including why he enlisted in the United States Marine Corps, how he was injured, and how... Read Born on the Fourth of July Summary
The poem “Facing It” by Yusef Komunyakaa is a meditation on the first time Komunyakaa visited the US Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington DC. Komunyakaa served in the Vietnam War as an Army journalist for the military newspaper, Southern Cross, until he was discharged in 1966. He began writing about the war approximately 14 years after coming home from Vietnam.Prior to this, he had only written one poem about his experience in the war, and... Read Facing It Summary
Prolific children’s author Walter Dean Myers published his novel Fallen Angels in 1988. The young adult novel tells the story of a 17-year-old African American teenager from Harlem named Richie Perry who enlists in the United States Army during the Vietnam War. The novel follows Perry as he faces the realities of war with his fellow soldiers and transitions into adulthood on the battlefield. The novel contemplates racial and socio-economic issues in the US, the... Read Fallen Angels Summary
If I Die in a Combat Zone: Box Me Up and Ship Me Home is an autobiographical account of writer Tim O'Brien's tour of duty in the Vietnam War. Published in 1973, it was one of the first major autobiographical accounts of the Vietnam War and has been praised extensively for its unflinching look at the horrors of armed conflict. Many critics have called it among the greatest pieces of literature to come out of... Read If I Die in a Combat Zone, Box Me Up and Ship Me Home Summary
In the Shadow of the Banyan (2012) is a historical fiction novel by the Cambodian American author Vaddey Ratner. Set in the 1970s during the Cambodian genocide, the book’s perspective is from Raami, a seven-year-old girl and the daughter of a minor prince whose family is among the millions of Cambodians persecuted by the Khmer Rouge. While Raami’s story hews very closely to Ratner’s own real-life experiences, the author chose to write a work of... Read In the Shadow of the Banyan Summary
Slouching Towards Bethlehem is Joan Didion’s 1968 collection of essays that document her experiences living in California from 1961 to 1967. It is her first collection of nonfiction (many of the pieces originally appeared in The Saturday Evening Post) and is hailed as a seminal document of culture and counterculture in 1960s California. Didion’s style was part of what Tom Wolfe called “New Journalism,” which emphasized the search for meaning over the reporting of facts... Read Slouching Towards Bethlehem Summary
The Quiet American is a 1955 novel by Graham Greene. Set during the era of French colonialism in Vietnam, it tells the story of an English journalist who is caught in a love triangle with an American intelligence agent and a Vietnamese woman. Greene had published over a dozen novels before The Quiet American and was considered one of the most influential American authors during his career. He drew on his own experiences as a... Read The Quiet American Summary
The Refugees is a 2017 collection of short stories by celebrated Vietnamese American author, Viet Thanh Nguyen. Nguyen has written fiction, academic nonfiction, and children’s books, and his novel The Sympathizer won the Pulitzer Prize in 2016. Nguyen received his doctorate in English at the University of California Berkeley, and he currently is a literature professor at the University of Southern California. Nguyen’s scholarship and literary works focus on the experiences of Vietnamese communities in... Read The Refugees Summary
Published in 1990, The Things They Carried is a collection of interrelated short stories about the Vietnam War written by American author Tim O’Brien. The historical fiction collection is considered essential literature about the Vietnam War and is often used to teach fiction writing techniques. An authorial persona, Tim O’Brien, narrates the stories in the first-person about his experiences during the war. The collection explores themes of Survivor’s Guilt, Talking as a Way of Processing... Read The Things They Carried Summary
Gary Schmidt’s middle grade novel, The Wednesday Wars, follows seventh grader Holling Hoodhood as he navigates the difficulties of junior high in the late 1960s. Published in 2007, Schmidt’s novel blends historical fiction with a coming-of-age theme, and was given the Newbery Medal in 2008. Other works by Schmidt include Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy (2004), Okay for Now (2011), and The Labors of Hercules Beal (2023).This guide refers to the Clarion Books 2009... Read The Wednesday Wars: A Newbery Honor Award Winner Summary
