| Philip Caputo | |
| Birth Date: | 10 June 1941 |
| Birth Place: | Westchester, Illinois, U.S. |
| Education: | Loyola University Chicago (BA) |
| Occupation: | Author, journalist |
Philip Caputo (born June 10, 1941) is an American author and journalist. He is best known for A Rumor of War (1977), a best-selling memoir of his experiences during the Vietnam War. Caputo has written 18 books, including three memoirs, five books of general nonfiction, nine novels, and one book of short stories. His latest is the novel Memory and Desire which was published in 2023 by Arcade Publishing.
Philip Caputo was born in Westchester, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago, and raised in Berwyn and Westchester. He attended Fenwick High School and Loyola University Chicago, graduating with a B.A. in English in 1964. From 1965–1966 Caputo served in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN) as an infantry lieutenant (platoon commander) in the United States Marine Corps. Caputo served in combat and earned several medals and awards upon completion of his tour of duty.[1]
After serving three years in the Corps, Caputo began a career in journalism, joining the staff of the Chicago Tribune in 1968. In 1973, Caputo was part of a writing team that won the Pulitzer Prize for reporting on election fraud in Chicago. For the next five years, he was a foreign correspondent for the Tribune. He covered the fall of Saigon in 1975, and he worked in Italy, the Soviet Union and the Middle East.[2] In 1975, he was shot and wounded in the ankle by a militiaman with an AK-47 during the Battle of the Hotels in Lebanon.[3] [4]
Philip Caputo's memoir of Vietnam, A Rumor of War (1977), has been published in 15 languages, and has sold two million copies since its first publication. It is widely regarded as a classic in the literature of war. The book was adapted as a 1980 two-part TV movie of the same name, starring Brad Davis, Keith Carradine, Brian Dennehy, and Michael O'Keefe. A Fortieth Anniversary Edition of A Rumor of War was published in summer 2017.[5]
Memory and Desire (2023), Caputo’s 18th book, is a novel set in south Florida about love and the persistence of love, about desire and desire remembered, and the reunion of a fifty-year-old man with a son he fathered out of wedlock in his youth.[6]
In addition to books, Caputo has published dozens of major magazine articles, reviews, and op-ed pieces in publications ranging from The New York Times, The Boston Globe, and The Washington Post to Esquire, National Geographic, and the Virginia Quarterly Review.[7]
Caputo has lectured at approximately 20 universities and prep schools around the country, and has been a featured speaker for the National Book Committee, the American Library Association, and the American Publishers Association. He has participated in the Key West Literary Seminar, Tennessee Williams Literary Festival, Chicago Humanities Festival, and the Cheltenham Literary Festival in Cheltenham, England.
He has also worked as a screenwriter for Paramount Pictures and Michael Douglas Productions. Caputo has been a guest on the Charlie Rose Show and the Today Show. He has narrated or appeared in several TV documentaries on the Vietnam War, the Cold War, and other subjects.[2]