Herman Wouk – författare

The #1 New York Times–bestselling and Pulitzer Prize–winning author of This is My God continues to share his thoughts on Jewish faith and survival.Winner of the Jewish Book Council''s Literary Achievement AwardHerman Wouk has ranged in his novels from the mighty narrative of The Caine Mutiny and the warm, intimate humor of Marjorie Morningstar to the global panorama of The Winds of War and War and Remembrance. All these powers merge in this major work of nonfiction, The Will to Live On, an illuminating account of the worldwide revolution that has been sweeping over Jewry, set against a swiftly reviewed background of history, tradition, and sacred literature.Although the Torah and the Talmud are timeless, the twentieth century has brought earthquake shocks to the Jews: the apocalyptic experience of the Holocaust, the reborn Jewish state, the precarious American diaspora, and deepening religious schisms. After a lifetime of study, Wouk examines the changes affecting the Jewish world, especially the troubled wonder of Israel, and the remarkable, though dwindling, American Jewry. The book is peppered with wonderful stories of the author''s encounters with such luminaries as Ben Gurion, Isidor Rabi, Yitzhak Rabin, Saul Bellow, and Richard Feynan.Learned in general culture, warmly tolerant of other beliefs, this noted author expresses his own faith with a passion that gives the book its fire and does so in the clear, engaging style that—as in all Wouk''s fiction—makes the reader want to know what the next page will bring.

The novel that inspired the now-classic film The Caine Mutiny and the hit Broadway play The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial.Herman Wouk''s boldly dramatic, brilliantly entertaining novel of life—and mutiny—on a Navy warship in the Pacific theater was immediately embraced, upon its original publication in 1951, as one of the first serious works of American fiction to grapple with the moral complexities and the human consequences of World War II. In the intervening half century, The Caine Mutiny has become a perennial favorite of readers young and old, has sold millions of copies throughout the world, and has achieved the status of a modern classic.

With this rollicking novel-hailed equally for its satiric bite, its lightly borne scientific savvy, and its tender compassion for foible-prone humanity-one of America's preeminent storytellers returns to fiction. Guy Carpenter is a regular guy, a family man, an obscure NASA scientist, when he is jolted out of his quiet life and summoned to the corridors of power in Washington, D.C. Through a turn of events as unlikely as it is inevitable, Guy finds himself compromised by scandal and romance, hounded by Hollywood, and agonizingly alone at the white-hot center of a firestorm ignited as three potent forces of American culture--politics, big science, and the media--spectacularly collide.

Herman Wouk Full Length, Drama Characters:19 male (6 non-speaking) Simple set The Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about a court martial has been adapted by the author into suspenseful evening of theatre. A young lieutenant is relieved his captain of command in the midst of a typhoon on the grounds that the captain, Queeg is a psychopath in crisis and commanded the ship and its crew to destruction. Naval tradition is against him, but testimony eventually reveals a devastating picture of Queeg's mental disintegration. "Enormously exciting. It is the modern stage at its best." -N.Y. Daily News

"A lighthearted and delightful tour de force" (The Washington Times).A romantic and suspenseful epistolary novel about a group of people trying to make a movie about Moses in the present day, The Lawgiver is a story that emerges from letters, memos, e-mails, journals, news articles, Skype transcripts, and text messages. At the center of The Lawgiver is Margo Solovei, a brilliant young writer-director who has rejected her rabbinical father’s strict Jewish upbringing to pursue a career in the arts. When an Australian multibillionaire promises to finance a movie about Moses, Margo does everything she can to land the job, including reunite with her estranged first love, an influential lawyer with whom she still has unfinished business. Two other key characters in the novel are Herman Wouk himself and his wife of more than sixty years, Betty Sarah, who, almost against their will, find themselves entangled in the movie. As Wouk and his characters contend with Moses and marriage, the force of tradition, rebellion and reunion, The Lawgiver reflects the wisdom of a lifetime. Inspired by the great nineteenth-century novelists, one of America’s most beloved twentieth-century authors has now written a remarkable twenty-first-century work of fiction.

A New York Times Bestseller, The Glory is a "sprawling, action-packed novel" of Israel by the author of The Hope (Philadelphia Inquirer).This follow-up to The Hope plunges immediately into the violence and upheaval of the Six-Day War of 1967 - and continues the stories of its multiple characters and of Israel's dramatic struggle for survival across the years. The Glory takes readers through the terrors of the Yom Kippur War, the famous Entebbe rescue, and the airstrikes on Saddam Hussein's nuclear reactor - ending with the final hope for peace.Shifting between Jerusalem and Washington, Los Angeles and Paris, this is the story of a beleaguered country and the men and women who fought for Israeli Independence and triumphed in the Six-Day War but know their fragile nationhood still hangs by a thread as their own children go into battle. Illuminating the inner lives of real Israeli leaders-including David Ben-Gurion, Golda Meir, Moshe Dayan, and Ariel Sharon-the Pulitzer Prize-winning "master of the historical novel" (Los Angeles Times) tells the story of Israel's struggle to exist with a compelling sense of both the broad significance of this time in history, and its personal impact on those who lived through it."A genuinely enjoyable read." - Detroit News"A top-notch storyteller." - Time

A "truly enjoyable" journey through one man's Jewish American experience by the #1 New York Times-bestselling author of Marjorie Morningstar (Newsday).Herman Wouk's classic novel moves on from the grand themes which have won him international acclaim - war, the fate of nations, and the indomitable spirit of man - to the quest for identity, in the clash between the Inside of faith and family and the Outside of the glittery American dream.Inside, Outside sweeps through more than sixty years, from the pre-war, pre-atomic innocence of the twenties and thirties to the turbulent immediate past. Scenes of rollicking family humour and show-business comedy alternate with sudden tragedy, the spectacle of a falling President and the explosion of war. A bittersweet first love, relived after forty years, and a tense secret wartime mission between Washington and Jerusalem call forth the author's renowned storytelling gift.An intense, personal book about intimate things, Inside, Outside is a merry, poignant, sometimes ribald picture of the American Jewish experience, by a master at the peak of his powers."Extremely funny." - The Wall Street Journal"A social comedy of Jewish-American life reaching from New York to Jerusalem and spanning much of the 20th century" - Publishers Weekly"Wouk reaffirms his position as one of the nation's eminent storytellers." - Newsday"Wouk`s most significant work since The Caine Mutiny." - Chicago Tribune"Generously stuffed with zestfully old-fashioned humor and sentiment." - Kirkus Reviews

Aspiring writer Arthur Youngblood Hawke moves from Hovey, Kentucky, to New York City with nothing but a manuscript and a dream: to make it as a novelist. When, impossibly, his manuscript is sold - and becomes an overnight success - Hawke finds himself instantly famous and wealthy beyond his wildest dreams. He gives himself over to the high life, enjoying everything fame, fortune and New York City can offer. But Hawke, like so many dreamers before him, will discover that fame and fortune are dangerous friends.

It's everyone's dream: to leave behind the rat-race of the working world and start life all over again amidst the cool breezes, sun-drenched colours, and rum-laced drinks of a tropical paradise. This is the story of Norman Paperman, a New York City press agent who, facing the onset of middle age, runs away to a Caribbean island to reinvent himself as a hotel keeper. Pulitzer Prize-winning author Herman Wouk, who himself lived on an island in the sun for seven years, draws on his own experiences to tell a story at once brilliantly comic and deeply moving about a man's search for happiness, and for himself.

"A lighthearted and delightful tour de force" (The Washington Times).A romantic and suspenseful epistolary novel about a group of people trying to make a movie about Moses in the present day, The Lawgiver is a story that emerges from letters, memos, e-mails, journals, news articles, Skype transcripts, and text messages. At the center of The Lawgiver is Margo Solovei, a brilliant young writer-director who has rejected her rabbinical father’s strict Jewish upbringing to pursue a career in the arts. When an Australian multibillionaire promises to finance a movie about Moses, Margo does everything she can to land the job, including reunite with her estranged first love, an influential lawyer with whom she still has unfinished business. Two other key characters in the novel are Herman Wouk himself and his wife of more than sixty years, Betty Sarah, who, almost against their will, find themselves entangled in the movie. As Wouk and his characters contend with Moses and marriage, the force of tradition, rebellion and reunion, The Lawgiver reflects the wisdom of a lifetime. Inspired by the great nineteenth-century novelists, one of America’s most beloved twentieth-century authors has now written a remarkable twenty-first-century work of fiction.

96-year-old author of Pulitzer Prize-winning The Caine Mutinypens an ingeniously witty novel about the life of Moses For more than 50 years, Herman Wouk has dreamed of writing a novel about the life of Moses Finally, at the age of 96, he has found an ingeniously witty way to tell the tale of The Lawgiver, a romantic and suspenseful epistolary novel about a group of people trying to make a movie about Moses in the present day. At its centre is Margo Solovei, a brilliant young writer-director who has rejected her father''s strict Jewish upbringing to pursue a career in the arts. When an Australian multi-billionaire promises to finance a movie about Moses, Margo does everything she can to land the job, including a reunion with her estranged first love, an influential lawyer with whom she has unfinished business. * Visit Herman Wouk''s website at www.hermanwouk.net''Endearing and light-hearted'' Michael Prodger, FT

“A sparkling memoir of a well-lived life of literature, fame, and love” (Booklist) by one of America’s most beloved authors, as he looks back over his 100 years.In this remarkable memoir “full of adventure, wit, color, and detail” (Jewish Journal), Herman Wouk finally reflects on the life experiences that inspired his most enduring novels. With a tone that is “generous and warm” (The Boston Globe), he tells of his days writing for comedian Fred Allen’s radio show, one of the most popular shows in the history of the medium; enlisting in the US Navy during World War II; falling in love with Betty Sarah Brown, the woman who would become his wife (and literary agent) for sixty-three years; writing his Pulitzer Prize–winning novel, The Caine Mutiny; as well as a big hit Broadway play and an equally big Broadway flop; and the surprising inspirations and people behind such masterpieces as The Winds of War, War and Remembrance, Marjorie Morningstar, and Youngblood Hawke. Written with the wisdom of a “trailblazing centenarian charmer” (Buffalo News) and the wit of someone who began his career as professional comedy writer, Sailor and Fiddler is an unprecedented reflection on writing and faith—“a lovely coda to the career of a man who made American literature a kinder, smarter, better place” (NPR).

An epic of Israel from its founding to the Six-Day War by the #1 New York Times–bestselling author: "Full of excitement." —Entertainment WeeklyFrom the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Winds of War and The Caine Mutiny, this saga spans from 1948 to 1967, the early decades of the state of Israel as it struggles for its life, outmatched and surrounded by enemies—the first of the two-part epic that concludes with The Glory. Zev Barak, Sam Pasternak, Don Kishote, and Benny Luria are all officers in the Israeli army caught up in the sweep of history, fighting the desperate desert skirmishes and meeting the larger-than-life personalities that shaped Israel''s fight for independence. The four heroes and the women they love weave a compelling tapestry of individual destinies through a grand recounting of one nation''s battle against the odds."Much of the dialogue is witty; the descriptions of back-channel diplomacy between the United States and Israel are fascinating and convincing." —The New York Times Book Review"Solid historical research . . . fictional characters of Wouk''s own invention rub shoulders with real-life historical figures like David Ben Gurion [and] Moshe Dayan." —The Christian Science Monitor"Rich and satisfying . . . deftly portrays the human face of inhuman conflict." —The Plain Dealer"An engrossing and often moving tale." —Publishers Weekly