-
Access our Top 20
Books of 2024!
Author Biography | Interview | Books by this Author | Read-Alikes
Helen Benedict, a professor at Columbia University, writes frequently about justice, women, soldiers, and war. She is the author of seven novels, including Sand Queen, a Publishers Weekly "Best Contemporary War Novel." A recipient of both the Ida B. Wells Award for Bravery in Journalism and the James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism, Benedict is also the author of five works of nonfiction, including The Lonely Soldier: The Private War of Women Serving in Iraq, and the play The Lonely Soldier Monologues. She lives in New York.
Helen Benedict's website
This bio was last updated on 12/05/2017. In a perfect world, we would like to keep all of BookBrowse's biographies up to date, but with many thousands of lives to keep track of it's simply impossible to do. So, if the date of this bio is not recent, you may wish to do an internet search for a more current source, such as the author's website or social media presence. If you are the author or publisher and would like us to update this biography, send the complete text and we will replace the old with the new.
You interviewed dozens of veterans as well as Iraqi refugees before writing about them in your nonfiction book The Lonely Soldier, your novel Sand Queen, and now, in Wolf Season. What is it about their stories that continues to inspire your writing?
All the Iraqis I met, and most of the veterans, had been through truly terrible traumas—war, after all, offers little else. What inspired me was their resilience and their honesty. Parents who had lost children, soldiers who had lost friends, adults who had lost brothers and sisters and spouses, and women who had been sexually attacked or tortured—all revealed a determination and generosity of spirit I found deeply moving. They told me their stories because they wanted to help others who had lived through similar circumstances. The impulse of many who have been through trauma is to help others. This speaks to the best side of the human spirit, just as war often reveals the worst.
Your novel prominently features three mothers. Rin is an Iraq war veteran and Naema is an Iraqi refugee. Beth, on the other hand, is neither a soldier nor a refugee but the wife of a deployed marine. What inspired the creation of her character? What were you hoping she...
Jiang Rong is the pen name of Lu Jiamin (in Chinese, the family name comes first). To protect himself from what he describes as "the least liberal country in the world", he wrote Wolf Totem under a pen-name and ... (more)
If you enjoyed:
Wolf Season
Try:
Wolf Totem
by Rong Jiang
Christian Kiefer has a PhD in American literature from the University of California–Davis and directs the low-residency MFA at Ashland University. The author of The Animals and The Infinite Tides, he lives with his ... (more)
If you enjoyed:
Wolf Season
Try:
The Animals
by Christian Kiefer
We recommend 5 similar authors
.png)
Show me the books he loves and I shall know the man...
Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
