Unbroken (The Young Adult Adaptation): An Olympian's Journey from Airman to Castaway to Captive

Laura Hillenbrand is the author of Unbroken as well as the novel Seabiscuit: An American Legend (2001). Hillenbrand has felt the impact throughout her life of Chronic fatigue syndrome, which caused her to drop out of college. In her essay A Sudden Illness (2003), she discusses her struggles and battle with the medical condition. She wrote the book Unbroken because of the impact that Louie Zamperini had on her life, as his strength and perseverance gave her the courage to handle her problems. Additionally, she credits Louie’s willingness to share his story with her and allow her to write the book to the fact that he read her essay and therefore trusted her to appropriately explore his experiences.

In an article titled “The Unbreakable Laura Hillenbrand” written for the New York Times, journalist Wil Hylton discusses Hillenbrand’s literary style as something that comes after New Journalism. While New Journalism focuses on literary prose and stylistic writing, Hillenbrand instead focuses on the facts and details of the story, desiring not to “draw attention to the writing itself.” In Unbroken, this writing style is seen throughout, as she regularly breaks from the literary story of Louie’s life to ground the reader with facts, details, and statistics about World War II and provide further insight into Louie’s ordeals.