Biography

Tim O'Brien grew up the small town of Austin, Minnesota and moved to Worthington, Minnesota at the age of ten. This serves as a background in many of O'Brien's stories like The Things They Carried. He served as an infantryman in theVietnam war from 1968-1970. This influenced O'Brien greatly for several of his short stories are on this subject. After serving he went and got his graduate at Harvard University. Out of college he got a job working for the Washington post before he launched his literary career in 1973. Tim O'Brien is shown in several of his books as a narrator like in The Things They Carried. O'Brien is now a visiting professor and endowed chair at Southwest Texas State University where he teaches creative writing.