What is it good for? (War)

On this episode of Articulate Experience— four writers who’ve each seen war from a different angle. 

Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper comic strip artist Garry Trudeau sent one of his tentpole Doonsebury characters to Vietnam and both Gulph wars. Along the way, he connected with real veterans and became a proud vessel for their stories.

The award-winning author Maaza Mengiste and her family fled Ethiopia during the revolution of 1974. And though she was only three years old at the time, she remembers a great deal. 

Pulitzer Prize-winning Poet Yusef Komunyakaa has documented war inside and out. As a black soldier fighting for the U.S. in the Vietnam War, he won a Bronze Star for his combat reporting. Years later, he started writing poetry reflecting on his experiences of battle, and found he couldn’t stop. 

For Aleksander Hemon, stories are the stuff of selfhood. He writes to preserve the memory of his family, and the homeland they lost to the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s.

• [01:04] Garry Trudeau 
• [21:04] Maaza Mengiste
• [31:12] Yusef Komunyakaa 
• [40:44] Aleksander Hemon
  
  

Articulate Experience examines stories of humanity, resilience, and wisdom through the words of some of today’s greatest writers.

Articulate Experience is a production of the Articulate Foundation.

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