Arts of War on the Web

Yusef Komunyakaa, the most-honored American poet who served in the Vietnam War, will be inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters in May. Komunyakka, a former U.S. Army journalist, and eight others will join the 250-person AAAL roster of architects, composers, artists, and writers.

This select group includes the cream of the American arts community, including literary lights Edward Albee, E.L. Doctorow. Don DeLillo, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, John Irving, John McPhee, Toni Morrison, Philip Roth, Ann Tyler, Gore Vidal, Tom Wolfe, and Garry Wills. As the Academy itself notes, being nominated and elected is considered the highest formal recognition of artistic merit in the United States.

By my reckoning, the Academy includes only one other writer who served in the military during the Vietnam War: Alan (Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All) Gurganus, along with Robert (Dog Soldiers) Stone, who did a stint in the Navy in the late fifties and early sixties. Maya Lin, who designed the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, was elected into the Academy in 2005.

Tobias Wolff, the acclaimed short story writer and memoirist (This Boys Life, In Pharaoh’s Army), who served in the Army Special Forces in the Vietnam War, received the 2009 Story Prize for short fiction on March 4. He was honored for his 2008 collection, Our Story Begins.

The Story Prize, in its fifth year, includes a $20,000 award. Wolff’s book and two other finalists were chosen from among 73 story collections published by 56 different publishers or imprints.

Wolff received the award and an engraved silver bowl at an the Story Prize awards ceremonies, which took place at The New School in New York City. The other finalists, Jhumpa Lahiri (Unaccustomed Earth) and Joe Meno (Demons in the Spring), received $5,000 prizes. The three authors also read from their work at the event.

Here’s what I had to say about the collection in my review, which appeared in the May-June 2008 issue of The VVA Veteran:

In this collection of old and new stories, Wolff creates one or two sharply drawn, compelling characters and puts them through fast-paced, intriguing stories that quickly come to a fascinating (if sometimes inconclusive) end. These stories are set in many different locations: college campuses, Army bases, prep schools, rural areas, cities.

A few deal with Vietnam veterans. But these aren’t Vietnam War stories. They are three decades worth of first-rate short fiction from one of the greatest literary lights of our generation.