Written at age 19, James S. Kunen's first-person account of the 1968 antiwar student strike at Columbia University typifies his generation's belief that they could make a better world. MGM's film based on the book won the Jury Prize at the 1970 Cannes Film Festival.
"Wise, resonantly humane, very funny." – Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
"An elegant literary stylist . . . Moving, troubling, assertive and eloquent." – The New York Times
Excerpts from the book
"I should like to point out immediately that just because I happened to be born in 1948, it doesn't mean that what I have to say as a nineteen-year-old is worth any more than what nineteen-year-olds had to say in, to pick a year at random, 1920. To say that youth is what's happening is absurd. It's always been happening. Everyone is nineteen, only at different times." (p.3) more
"There are those who want an armed Revolution and I am not one of them. Not just now. But I do have a statement to make at this time, gentlemen.less
Since the First Republic of the United States is one hundred ninety-two years old and I am nineteen, I will give it one more chance." (p. 175)
Other Books by James S. Kunen
Praise for Diary of a Company Man
". . . James Kunen has done it again, with his acute, observant, funny and moving story of what's truly important in life."
– Jonathan Alter, author of The Promise: President Obama, Year One
About James S. Kunen, author of Diary of a Company Man
© Peter Serling, 2011
James S. Kunen is the author of popular and critically praised books that grapple with legal and political issues in a personal way. A prize-winning journalist, he is best known for his 1968 memoir, The Strawberry Statement: Notes of a College Revolutionary—his account of the antiwar student strike at Columbia. He describes the journey from corporate PR man to teacher of immigrants in his new memoir, Diary of a Company Man: Losing a Job, Finding a Life.