Wouk, Herman

Wouk, Herman wōk [key], 1915–2019, American writer, b. New York City. In The Caine Mutiny (1951; Pulitzer Prize), he made the protagonist-antagonist Captain Queeg a popular symbol of uncontrolled authority. A best-seller, it was later turned into a movie and then a play. Two later novels about World War II, the carefully researched The Winds of War (1971) and War and Remembrance (1978), were also very successful and formed the basis for two 1980s television miniseries. Among his other novels are Marjorie Morningstar (1955), Youngblood Hawke (1962), Inside, Outside (1985), The Hope (1993), The Glory (1994), A Hole in Texas (2004), and The Lawgiver (2012). Wouk also wrote three studies of Judiasm and Jewish life, This Is My God (1959), The Will to Live On (2000), and The Language God Talks (2010).

See his memoir, Sailor and Fiddler: Reflections of a 100-Year-Old Author (2015); studies by A. Beichman (1984), L. W. Mazzeno (1994), and B. A. Paulson, ed. (1999).

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