His father would read to him from Sholem Aleichem, the great Yiddish writer. The household was religious - his mother was a rabbi's daughter - and devoted to books. The son of Russian Jews, Wouk was born in New York in 1915.
Wouk's longevity inspired Stephen King to title one story "Herman Wouk is Still Alive." He published the novel "The Lawgiver" in his 90s and at age 100 completed a memoir.
In 2008, Wouk received the first ever Library of Congress Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Writing of Fiction. In 1995, the Library of Congress marked his 80th birthday with a symposium on his career historians David McCullough, Robert Caro, Daniel Boorstin and others were present. Wouk was well remembered in his latter years. President Ronald Reagan, in a 1987 speech honoring 37 sailors killed on the USS Stark, quoted Wouk: "Heroes are not supermen they are good men who embody - by the cast of destiny - the virtue of their whole people in a great hour." His friends and admirers ranged from Israeli Prime Ministers David Ben-Gurion and Yitzhak Rabin to Nobel laureates Saul Bellow and Elie Wiesel. During his years in Washington, the Georgetown synagogue he attended was known unofficially as "Herman Wouk's synagogue."īut Wouk was widely appreciated for the uncanniness of his historical detail, and he had an enviably large readership that stayed with him through several long novels. He gave speeches and sermons around the country and received several prizes, including a lifetime achievement award from the Jewish Book Council. For much of his life, he studied the Talmud daily and led a weekly Talmud class. One of his most influential books was "This Is My God," published in 1959 and an even-handed but firm defense of Judaism.
Lewis, Chaim Potok and Flannery O'Connor who openly maintained traditional beliefs. But Wouk was part of a smaller group that included C.S. From Ernest Hemingway to James Joyce, major authors of the 20th century were assumed either anti-religious or at least highly skeptical. Wouk (pronounced WOKE) was an outsider in the literary world. "The Winds of War" received some of the highest ratings in TV history and Wouk's involvement covered everything from the script to commercial sponsors. Other highlights included "Don't Stop the Carnival," which Wouk and Buffett adapted into a musical, and his two-part World War II epic, "The Winds of War" and "War and Remembrance," both of which Wouk himself adapted for a 1983, Emmy Award-winning TV miniseries starring Robert Mitchum.
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