Wouk, Herman

(US, 1915– )

Wouk is a best-selling author whose works have been adapted for film and television, notably the huge novels recapitulating events of the Second World War, The Winds of War (1971) and War and Remembrance (1978). They use traditional, panoramic fictional techniques, switching locations in the portrayal of battles, personal conflicts, and the Holocaust, but also freely mix real and imaginary characters. Wouk is unusual as a twentieth-century writer in his emphasis on a morality based on his Orthodox Judaism and conservative politics. His Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Caine Mutiny (1951) concerns conflict aboard a US naval ship between the irrational Captain Queeg and a junior officer, leading to a court martial with powerful cross-examination scenes. Marjorie Morningstar (1955) finds a young woman attempting to escape her background, only to find the pull of Jewish family values too strong.

Bernard Malamud, Gore Vidal.

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