James Vincent Sheean (December 5, 1899,Pana, Illinois – March 16, 1975,^[1] Arolo,Frz. ofLeggiuno,Italy) was an American journalist and novelist.

Sheean's most famous work wasPersonal History (New York:Doubleday, 1935^[2]). It won one of theinaugural National Book Awards: the Most Distinguished Biography of 1935.^[3][4][a]Film producerWalter Wanger acquired the political memoir and made it the basis for his 1940 film productionForeign Correspondent,directed byAlfred Hitchcock.

Sheean served as areporter for theNew York Herald Tribune during theSpanish Civil War.^[5]

Sheean wrote the narration for the feature-length documentaryCrisis (1939) directed byAlexander Hammid and Herbert Kline. He translatedÈve Curie's biography of her mother,Madame Curie (1939), into English.Sheean wroteOscar Hammerstein I: Life and Exploits of an Impresario (1955) as well as a controversial biography ofDorothy Thompson andSinclair Lewis,Dorothy and Red (1963).

He studied at the University of Chicago, becoming part of a literary circle which includedGlenway Wescott,Yvor Winters,Elizabeth Madox Roberts andJanet Lewis while he was there.^[6]

Vincent andDiana Forbes-Robertson Sheean were friends ofEdna St. Vincent Millay and her husband, Eugen; they spent time together onRagged Island off the coast ofMaine during the summer of 1945.

Partial list, including both fiction and otherwise:

• New Persia (1927) - Iran
• Anatomy of Virtue - (1927) - Psychological romance novel of an American girl who marries an English nobleman.
• American Among the Riffi (1926)
• Gog and Magog
• The Tide (1933) - "If a Messiah Came to Your Town Today, What Would You Think? What Would You Do?".
• Personal History: Youth and Revolution: the Story of One Person's Relationship to Living History (1935)
• Sanfelice (1936) - Historical novel set in Naples
• The Pieces of a Fan (1937)
• A Day of Battle (1938) - Historical novel based on the French victory at Fontenoy in Flanders on May 11, 1745
• Not Peace but a Sword (1939) - Europe. Personal account of events in Prague, Madrid, London, Paris and Berlin during the 12 fateful months between March 1938 and March 1939.^[7]
• Lead, Kindly Light: Gandhi & the Way to Peace, Random House (1949). Can Gandhi's non-violent approach lead the world away from violence as the way to settle disputes?
• Between the Thunder and the Sun (1943) Account of being in England during theBattle of Britain.

• Cohen, Deborah.Last Call at the Hotel Imperial: The Reporters Who Took On a World at War (2022) American coverage of 1930s in Europe byJohn Gunther,H. R. Knickerbocker, Vincent Sheean, andDorothy Thompson.excerpt

• Dave, Anish.Seeking to Understand the World: Literary Journalism of Vincent Sheean (2023). Vernon Press.[1]

• Cott, Nancy F.Fighting Words: The Bold American Journalists Who Brought the World Home Between the Wars (2020). Basic Books.[2]

• Hamilton, John M.Journalism's Roving Eye: A History of American Foreign Reporting (2009). Louisiana State University Press.[3]

• Biography of Vincent Sheean
• Vincent Sheean atIMDb
• Vincent Sheean at Traces.org
• Sheean's "Holy Land" chapter remains vital to understanding Palestinian conflict
• Vincent Sheean papers at Syracuse University
• Guide to the Vincent Sheean and Ruth Falkenau Correspondence 1919-1986 at theUniversity of Chicago Special Collections Research Center

• 1899 births
• 1975 deaths
• People from Pana, Illinois
• American male screenwriters
• National Book Award winners
• Screenwriters from Illinois
• 20th-century American male writers
• 20th-century American screenwriters
• American war correspondents
• American people of the Spanish Civil War
• New York Herald Tribune people
• War correspondents of the Spanish Civil War

• Articles with short description
• Short description matches Wikidata