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Karl Marlantes was born in Seaside, Oregon in 1945. After attending high school in Seaside, Marlantes was awarded a National Merit Scholarship. He attended Yale University, where he was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship. Rather than studying at Oxford, Marlantes enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps, and served as a lieutenant during the Vietnam War, earning the Navy Cross, two Navy Commendations for Valor, two Purple Hearts, and ten Air Medals. After returning from the War, Marlantes began writing about his experience.

His first novel, Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War, was published in a small edition of 1,000 copies in 2009 by El León Literary Arts of Berkeley, California. With an official publication date of May 1, advanced readers copies were mailed out early in the year. Staffers at Barnes & Noble were impressed with the novel, and submitted it to a first-novel contest, which led a number of New York publishers to express interest in obtaining the rights to the book. Eventually, Grove Atlantic Press made a deal with El León and copies already printed but not yet distributed were issued as galleys for a El León/Grove joint revised publication, which was issued in 2010.

Matterhorn was Amazon's Book of the Month for March 2010, and debuted on the New York Times bestseller list in April 2010. It won the 2011 William E. Colby Award, was ranked #7 for Fiction in Time Magazine's Best Books of the Year (2010), and was one of the New York Times Notable Books of the Year (2010). It was also an ALA Notable Book (2010), won the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Award (2011), and won the Indies Choice Book Award (Adult Debut, 2011).