Michael Herr (born 1940, in Syracuse, New York) is a writer and former war correspondent, best known as the author of Dispatches (1977), a
memoir of his time as a correspondent for Esquire magazine (1967–1969) during the Vietnam War. The book was called the best "to have been
written about the Vietnam War" by the The New York Times Book Review; novelist John le Carré called it "the best book I have ever read on
men and war in our time." Herr later became credited with pioneering the literary genre of the nonfiction novel, along with authors such as Truman
Capote, Norman Mailer, and Tom Wolfe.
Herr co-wrote the screenplay for Full Metal Jacket with his close friend director Stanley Kubrick and author Gustav Hasford. The film was
based on Hasford's novel The Short-Timers and the screenplay was nominated for an Academy award. He also contributed to the narration for
Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now. He collaborated with Richard Stanley in writing the original screenplay for the 1996 adaptation
of the H.G. Wells novel, The Island of Dr. Moreau. However, Stanley claims the subsequent rewrites cost Herr his writing credit, omitting
most of the material created by the two writers. The omission probably worked to his favor, however, since the movie was panned by critics and earned
credited writers Stanley and Ron Hutchinson a Razzie Award for Worst Screenplay of 1997.
Herr wrote a pair of articles for Vanity Fair about Stanley Kubrick, which were later incorporated into the small book Kubrick, a very personal
biography of the director. He declined to edit Kubrick's film Eyes Wide Shut.
He wrote an early screenplay of On the Road, based on the book by Jack Kerouac, which was never produced.
And Other Vietnam War Short Stories
http://www.vietnamwar.net
