Herman Wouk

Herman Wouk, born in 1915, American novelist, best known for his fiction concerning World War II (1939-1945). Many of his works center on the moral dilemmas of fictional characters as they interact with historic figures. The Caine Mutiny (1951) earned Wouk the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1952.

Born in New York City to Russian Jewish immigrant parents, Wouk graduated from Columbia University in 1934. In 1935 he began work as a comedy writer for radio, and in 1941 he started producing radio shows promoting war bonds. In 1942 Wouk enlisted in the United States Navy. While serving in the Pacific Ocean, he began work on his first novel.

Wouk wrote two novels, Aurora Dawn (1947) and The City Boy (1948), before achieving success with The Caine Mutiny (1951). This novel, narrated by a young naval officer named Willie Keith, examines morality on a mine-sweeping vessel in the Pacific Ocean after another officer, Steve Maryk, rebels against the emotionally unstable captain. Maryk is subsequently court-martialed but acquitted. A movie version of the book was released in 1954, and Wouk adapted the courtroom section of the story into a play, The Caine Mutiny Court Martial (1954).

Wouk's next two novels were both best-sellers. Marjorie Morningstar (1955) is about a young Jewish American woman in New York City whose quest for romance and a theater career helps her come to a better understanding of her heritage. This novel was followed by Youngblood Hawke (1962), about a talented writer. The character was based partly on American novelist Thomas Wolfe and partly on Wouk himself.

Wouk produced two more best-sellers with The Winds of War (1971), a historical romance set in the midst of the political intrigue leading up to World War II, and its sequel, War and Remembrance (1978), set during the war itself. Wouk also wrote the scripts for the highly successful television miniseries versions of the books, which aired in 1983 and 1986, respectively. His subsequent books include Inside, Outside (1985), which follows the life of an Orthodox Jew during the 20th century, and The Hope (1993) and The Glory (1994), both of which chronicle the first 20 years of the state of Israel.