Sebastian Junger (born 17 January 1962 in Belmont, Massachusetts) is an American author and journalist. He graduated from Concord Academy in 1980 and received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Wesleyan University in cultural anthropology in 1984. He received a National Magazine Award in 2000 for "The Forensics of War," published in Vanity Fair in 1999. In 1997, with the publication of his work, The Perfect Storm, he was touted as the new Hemingway, and helped usher a renewed interest in adventure non-fiction. He lives in New York City with his wife Daniela, where he co-owns a bar called The Half-King. He recently reported from Nigeria on the subject of blood oil.
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Notable work
The Perfect Storm
He found fame after writing the international bestseller The Perfect Storm: A True Story of Men Against the Sea. Published in 1997, it recounts the tale of the October 1991 "perfect storm", focusing on the loss of the Gloucester fishing boat Andrea Gail off the coast of Nova Scotia. It was subsequently made into a film by Warner Brothers. At the time of the storm, Junger was recovering from a wound to the left leg that he suffered when working as a tree trimmer in the Boston area. His chainsaw had torn into his leg. He established The Perfect Storm Foundation to provide cultural and educational grants to children, nationally, whose parents make their living in the commercial fishing industry.
A Death in Belmont
A Death in Belmont centers on the rape-murder of Bessie Goldberg, committed during the 1962-1964 period of the Boston Strangler crimes. Although a different man was convicted, Junger raises the possibility that the real killer was Albert DeSalvo, who eventually confessed to committing several Strangler murders, but not Goldberg's. Goldberg's house was not far from the Junger family home, where Albert DeSalvo was doing construction work on the day Goldberg was killed. In fact, he said recently in a television interview, he grew up with a studio portrait of him on his family's wall. One day in 1962, before Junger was a year old, a photograph was taken. It shows Junger sitting on his mother's lap, and, standing behind them, two laborers who had just completed work on an extension to Junger's parents' house. Only two of the four subjects are looking directly at the camera: the baby and a stocky, smooth-haired man behind him, Albert DeSalvo.[1] The daughter of the victim, Leah Goldberg, reviews the work on amazon.com [2] and Joshua Marquis reviews the book in the Wall Street Journal.[3]
Fire
"Fire" is a collection of articles dealing with dangerous regions of the world or dangerous occupations. It is most notable for its chapter "Lion in Winter" in which Junger interviews Afghan North Alliance leader Ahmad Shah Massoud, the so-called Lion of the Panshir, a famed resistance fighter against first the Soviets and then the Taliban. Junger was one of the last Western journalists to interview Massoud in depth. The bulk of this interview was first published in March of 2001 for National Geographic's Adventure Magazine [4] along with photographs by the renowned Iranian photographer Reza Deghati. Massoud was assassinated on Sept. 9, 2001 in a plot clearly linked to the 9/11 attacks. Junger's portrait of Massoud gives one insight into how differently Afghanistan might have fared in the post-9/11 invasion had Massoud lived to help reclaim the country from the Taliban. However the charismatic Tajik was a controversial figure in Afghani modern history, as some have accused him of war crimes. "Fire" also details the conflict diamond trade in Sierra Leone, genocide in Kosovo and the hazards of fire-fighting in the Idaho wild.
