Moritz Thomsen

During World War II, Thomsen served as a B-17 Flying Fortress bombardier in the Eighth Air Force.

Upon arrival, and after many wanderings, he was assigned as agricultural expert to the small fishing town of Green River, north of the province of Esmeraldas .

"[7] Thomsen's literary work has been recognized and exalted by writers such as Paul Theroux, his personal friend and the prologue of The Saddest Pleasure, Tom Miller, Martha Gellhorn, Larry McMurtry, Wallace Stegner and Page, and Tony D'Souza.

Several scholarly studies affirm and confirm the idea, widespread among a wide group of readers, that Moritz Thomsen is one of the most important but least known of the second part of the twentieth century American writers.

And as an expat he was free to judge us all, an undertaking he finessed with acute observations, self-deprecation, and a flavorful frame of reference that ranged from a Tchaikovsky symphony to a Sealy Posturpedic mattress.

John D. Rockefeller hailed him in a journal article as one of the 12 Men Who Shaped the West and a biography of his life Wind in His Sails chronicled his adventures.

Thomsen's worldview is reflected in a statement he once made: "Living poor is like being sentenced to exist in a stormy sea in a battered canoe, requiring all your strength simply to keep afloat; there is never any question of reaching a destination.

True poverty is a state of perpetual crisis, and one wave just a little bigger or coming from an unexpected direction can and usually does wreck things.