April
17, 1998          
    							            Contact:
Rebecca Arrington
						                                       (804)
924-7116

	TIM O'BRIEN, U.VA.'S REA VISITING WRITER, TO SPEAK APRIL 24 
	
	National Book Award-winning author Tim O'Brien will be at the
University of Virginia April 24 as this semester's Rea Visiting Writer.
He will speak on the craft of fiction at 8 p.m. in the U.Va. Bookstore.
His talk is free and open to the public.
	A decorated Vietnam War veteran, O'Brien is known for his
gripping portrayals of the Vietnam conflict in novels and short stories.
His honors include O. Henry Awards in 1976 and 1978 for best stories of
the year and the National Book Award in 1979 for his novel, "Going after
Cacciato." He also won the Vietnam Veterans of America award in 1987 and
the Heartland Prize from the Chicago Tribune in 1990 for his war-writing
classic, "The Things They Carried." 
	Drawing on his own combat exposure, O'Brien delves into the
American psyche and the human experience as he writes of not only what
happens physically, but emotionally and mentally during war. 
	Drafted immediately following his graduation from Macalester
College in 1968, O'Brien served two years with the U.S. infantry. He
explains his motivation in writing about the Vietnam war as a need to
write with "passion." To write "good" stories "requires a sense of
passion, and my passion as a human being and as a writer intersect in
Vietnam, not in the physical stuff but in the issues of Vietnam -- of
courage, rectitude, enlightenment, holiness, trying to do the right
thing in the world," he has said.
	"Writing fiction is a solitary endeavor....You shape your own
universe. You practice all the time, then practice some more. You pay
attention to craft. You aim for tension and suspense, a sense of drama,
displaying in concrete terms the actions and reactions of human beings
contesting problems of the heart. You try to make art. You strive for
wholeness, seeking continuity and flow, each element performing both as
cause and effect, always hoping to create, or to recreate, the great
illusions of life."

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	O'Brien's first novel, "If I Die in a Combat Zone, Box Me Up and
Ship Me Home," is an account of an infantryman's year in Vietnam.
	"Northern Lights," his next book, creates a progression in the
Vietnam tale -- the story of the Vietnam soldier coming home to his
family. 
	O'Brien takes a new slant on his Vietnam theme in "Going After
Cacciato."
         The chapters can stand alone as short stories; several were
published as such before the book's completion, with two tales winning
O. Henry Awards. Cacciato (which means "the pursued") records the dream
journey of Paul Berlin, an infantryman in Vietnam, and alternates this
with the "dreamlike" actualities of war. 
	In "The Nuclear Age," O'Brien shifts his focus to a civilian's
perspective. William Cowling, a Vietnam era anti-war radical, terrorist,
and draft dodger, is the protagonist who trades in his radicalism for
profits in uranium speculation in the 1990s.
	O'Brien returns to the subject of Vietnam and the soldier's
viewpoint with "The Things They Carried," a fictional memoir filled with
interconnected stories about the conflict and the people involved. The
title refers to the things a soldier takes into combat with him -- not
necessarily all physical items, like weapons, but also intangibles such
as fear, exhaustion, and memories.
	The Rea Visiting Writer program in U.Va.'s English department is
sponsored each semester by the Dungannon Foundation and the Henry Hoyns
Fund. During their visits, Rea visiting writers work with students in
the department's Creative Writing Program.

                           			    ###
	For additional information contact the U.Va. Creative Writing
Program at (804) 924-6675.
	Television reporters should contact our TV News Office at (804)
924-7550. 










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