Herman Wouk (1915–2019) was an American novelist, playwright, and screenwriter who championed orthodox Jewish values and American patriotism. A sharp critic of cultural assimilation, he wrote books about Judaism and modern belief and articulated a conservative view of ethics and morality.
Born in New York City to Russian-Jewish immigrants, Wouk attended Columbia University and wrote radio scripts. Between 1936 and 1941, he wrote jokes and sketches for the radio comedian Fred Allen. He served in the U.S. Navy in the South Pacific during World War II aboard a minesweeper, the experience of which he drew on for his classic war novel, The Caine Mutiny (1951.) It won the Pulitzer Prize and became a successful play and The Caine Mutiny film starring Humphrey Bogart.
Wouk’s later books—Marjorie Morningstar (1955) and Youngblood Hawke (1962)—sold well but did not critically outshine his initial success. He wrote This Is My God: The Jewish Way of Life (1959) to explain the meaning of Judaism to a broader reading public.
Wouk’s other notable works include The Winds of War (1971; ABC television series, 1983) and War and Remembrance (1978; ABC television series, 1988–89.) He also wrote The Hope (1993) about the early years of Israel and its sequels The Glory (1994) and The Will to Live On: This Is Our Heritage (2000.)
In 2008, Wouk became the first recipient of the award for lifetime achievement in the writing of fiction given by the Library of Congress. Sailor and Fiddler: Reflections of a 100-Year Old Author (2015) marked his centenary.
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Let us fill a cup and drink to that most noble, ridiculous, laughable, sublime figure in our lives…The Young Man Who Was. Let us drink to his dreams, for they were rainbow-colored; to his appetites, for they were strong; to his blunders, for they were huge; to his pains for they were sharp; to his time for it was brief; and to his end, for it was to become one of us.
—Herman Wouk
Topics: Youth