Author guide
Daniel James Brown is an American author and technical writer known for narrative nonfiction about historical disasters, exploration, athletics, and Japanese American military service. He has also taught writing and co-authored writing textbooks.
Catalog record updated .
nonfiction · First published 2021
Based on Daniel James Brown's extensive interviews with the families of the protagonists as well as deep archival research, this book portrays the kaleidoscopic journey of four Japanese-American families and their sons who volunteered for 442nd Regimental Combat Team and were deployed to France, Germany, and Italy, where they were asked to do the near impossible.
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The author's best-known and most accessible narrative nonfiction work, combining sports history with a broad human story.
A representative later work showing Brown's approach to American history, family experience, and wartime service.
Outside the series
nonfiction · 2006
nonfiction · 2009
In April of 1846, twenty-one-year-old Sarah Graves, intent on a better future, set out west from Illinois with her new husband, her parents, and eight siblings. Seven months later, after joining a party of pioneers led by George Donner,…
nonfiction · 2013
For readers of Unbroken, out of the depths of the Depression comes an irresistible story about beating the odds and finding hope in the most desperate of times—the improbable, intimate account of how nine working-class boys from the…
nonfiction · 2021
Based on Daniel James Brown's extensive interviews with the families of the protagonists as well as deep archival research, this book portrays the kaleidoscopic journey of four Japanese-American families and their sons who volunteered for…
textbook · 1984
textbook · 1987
Daniel James Brown is an author of narrative nonfiction known for bringing compelling historical events to life. He is distinct from Dan Brown, the author of Robert Langdon thriller novels.
Sources: danieljamesbrown.com (opens in a new tab)danbrown.com (opens in a new tab)
He taught writing at San José State University and Stanford University, then worked as a technical writer and editor before writing narrative nonfiction full time.
Sources: danieljamesbrown.com (opens in a new tab)artshumanities.berkeley.edu (opens in a new tab)
Brown has said that a lifetime of reading and his English studies shaped him. He studied Laura Hillenbrand’s Seabiscuit and Unbroken as models for narrative nonfiction while developing The Boys in the Boat.
Sources: dailyemerald.com (opens in a new tab)cbsnews.com (opens in a new tab)
The Boys in the Boat was a finalist for the American Library Association’s 2014 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction, and Under a Flaming Sky was a finalist for the Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Award. In 2024, the University of Washington awarded Brown an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters.
Sources: ala.org (opens in a new tab)penguinrandomhouse.com (opens in a new tab)washington.edu (opens in a new tab)
Brown has helped bring overlooked historical stories and accounts of ordinary people overcoming adversity to a wide readership. The Boys in the Boat spent more than two years on the New York Times bestseller list and was adapted into a feature film.
Sources: pbs.org (opens in a new tab)artshumanities.berkeley.edu (opens in a new tab)
