Winston Groom
| Winston Groom | |
|---|---|
| Born | Winston Francis Groom, Jr. March 23, 1943 Washington, D.C. |
| Nationality | American |
| Education | UMS-Wright Preparatory School |
| Alma mater | University of Alabama |
| Genre | Novel |
Winston Francis Groom, Jr. (born March 23, 1943) is an American novelist and non-fiction writer. He is best known for his book Forrest Gump, which was adapted into a film by Robert Zemeckis in 1994. The film became a cultural phenomenon, and won six Academy Awards. He published a sequel, Gump and Co., in 1995. He has also written numerous non-fiction works, on diverse subjects including the American Civil War and World War I.
Winston Groom was born in Washington, D.C., and was raised in Mobile County, Alabama, where he attended University Military School (now known as UMS-Wright Preparatory School). Groom's earliest ambition was to become a lawyer like his father; but, instead, while a literary editor in college, he chose to become a writer. Groom attended the University of Alabama, where he was a member of Delta Tau Delta Fraternity and the Army ROTC, graduating in 1965.
He served in the Army from 1965 to 1969, including a tour of duty in the Vietnam War. Most of his Army service was with the Fourth Infantry Division.
Upon his return from Vietnam, he worked as a reporter for the Washington Star, a Washington, D. C. Newspaper, covering the justice department and federal court system. Groom resigned to pursue a career in writing novels. Groom's first novel was Better Times Than These which was published in 1978.Better Times Than These was about a rifle company in the Vietnam War whose lives and patriotism both are shattered. His next novel As Summers Die (1980) received better recognition. His novel Conversations with the Enemy (1982) follows an American Vietnam War soldier who escapes from a POW camp and takes a plane back to the United States only to be arrested fourteen years later for desertion. Conversations with the Enemy was a Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction finalist in 1984.
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