Susan Sheehan (née Sachsel; born August 24, 1937)[1] is an Austrian-born American writer.
Born in Vienna, Austria,[1] she won the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction in 1983 for her book Is There No Place on Earth for Me?[2] The book details the experiences of a young New York City woman diagnosed with schizophrenia.[1] Portions of the book were published in The New Yorker, for which she has written frequently since 1961 as a staff writer.[1] Her work as a contributing writer has also appeared in The New York Times and Architectural Digest.[3]
In 1986, Sheehan published in The New Yorker "A Missing Plane," a three-part series about the U.S. Army's attempt to identify the remains of the victims of a 1944 airplane crash.
Her husband was the journalist Neil Sheehan, whom she urged to copy what became known as the Pentagon Papers for the Times with her help,[4] and who also won a Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction [1] for A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam in 1989.[2] Sheehan and her husband lived in Washington, D.C.[3]
Her other works include: