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Kenneth E. Dugan Fliés

In addition to Into the Backlands Ken is the co-author of the memoir Retrieving Isaac & Jason, published by
Hiawatha Press in 2012 and a collaborator on the novel Whispering Pines by Elliott Foster.
Retrieving Isaac and Jason was acquired for republishing and distribution in 2019 by international publisher Calumet Editions.
Ken is the author of numerous essays and stories on rural America and the American Civil War.
He is a past recipient of the Editor’s Choice Award of the National Library of Poetry.

His debut memoir, Into the Backlands was released in July of 2018. In 1962 as a teenager, Ken,
who led a sheltered life on a Midwestern dairy farm, became one of the pioneer Peace Corps Volunteers and located
to a small village in the remote backlands of Brazil during one of the most turbulent decades in American history.
For twenty-one months he would have no contact with his family. This is the story of his youthful odyssey
and call to adventure.

Ken, in addition to being a pioneer Peace Corps Volunteer in 1962, is a founder of the Rural America Writers’ Center
and the former Rural America Arts Partnership. Ken has been an accomplished national and international business
and social entrepreneur involved in the start-up and development of more than an a dozen companies and
organizations domestically and internationally. In 2002 he was recognized by Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty as
an outstanding rural entrepreneur and in 2012 by Governor Mark Dayton for his entrepreneurial contributions
to the State of Minnesota. Ken resides in St. Paul, Minnesota.

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HOW I BEGAN WRITING

I grew up in the idyllic hill country of southeastern Minnesota, a land inhabited by Native Americans and I believe a land
of many great story tellers. I remember as a young lad many great story tellers in my family. I reveled in my youth sitting and
listening to the spinning of many tales and yarns. The urge to write therefore seemed to always be in my soul and yearning.

My real beginning with writing occurred when I joined the Peace Corps. Somehow I thought it would be a fantastic adventure,
which it was, and felt I should do my best to record it. In 1962 when I left for the backlands of Brazil I purchased a small daily
diary and wrote in it faithfully every day. I also wrote numerous letters to family and friends as it was the only way of
communicating with them. Local press and others wanted writings of my impression of this novel and unique experience
and I accommodated them with articles. I also wrote more extensively of some of my travels in Brazil. Later in life I compiled
these materials, photos and other memorialization and analysis of this experience into a document for historical review.
This document encompasses some 700 pages of information.

Once I got started I have not stopped. I have for many years kept journals, written numerous short stories, essays, some poetry
and more extensive pieces on travels, professional experiences, and history; mostly for the pleasure of writing, not necessarily
publishing. I have been a lifelong devotee of the American Civil War and have written and lectured on it extensively. My main
writing interest is in nonfiction, historical fiction and memoir. Ernest Hemingway once said: “If you haven’t lived it you can’t
write about it.” I have lived a rich and eventful life and have more than enough material to keep me writing until my last breath.

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By Rachel M. Anderson, Contributing Writer

When we are young we dream of the great adventures we will go on one day. Oftentimes, these adventures are inspired by
books we have read, like “Huckleberry Finn” by Mark Twain and J.M. Barrie’s “Peter Pan.”

But how many of us in our youth actually answer the call for adventure? In 1962, Ken Fliés was among the first few thousand
Americans who answered President Kennedy’s call made during his inaugural speech: “Ask not what your country can do
for you, but what you can do for your country.”

Fliés was one of four residents of the small rural southern Minnesota town of Plainview in 1962 to join the original group
of Peace Corps volunteers. At the tender age of 19, he left home for the first time and headed to Oklahoma and Alabama
for three months of training, and then it was off to northeastern Brazil.

Once there, his job was to help people in a remote village establish community development programs and improvements in
agriculture. It was a job that came naturally to him, having grown up on a large dairy farm.

In his new memoir, Into the Backlands, Fliés shares his memories of his adventure. It is a book the Minnesota Historical
Society encouraged the retiree to write from an extensive diary and other notes he kept during his service. Fliés says the project
was also inspired by his love of history.

“I have written and lectured extensively on the American Civil War and had recently found the diary of a Civil War soldier
from my hometown at the University of Michigan Library. I remember how excited I was, as someone with a love of history,
reading the thoughts of that man who had lived through that major historical era 150 years earlier. I got to thinking of how
exciting it may be for someone living 100 years from now, doing research into the tumultuous 1960s Kennedy era, finding
my writings and memoir about The Peace Corps, one of the greatest accomplishments of Kennedy’s administration,” said Fliés.

Part memoir, part history book, Into the Backlands not onlyshares details about a young man’s adventures but of the
incredible moments in history he witnessed. The first of many, during training, were the race riots across the South, ignited
when in October 1962, James Meredith attempted to enter the University of Mississippi as the first African American
at an all-white Southern university.

“Our group started out with tremendous trauma, living and training in isolation under armed guards in Alabama because
of the James Meredith stuff. We then flew to Brazil on the day of the announcement of the Cuban Missile Crisis
(October 22, 1962), and arrived to more riots. Instead of staying in the most beautiful place in the world, Rio de Janeiro,
for a month of in-country acclimation and language training as promised, we were put on buses and driven 500 miles into
the center of the country to an abandoned hydro facility. We were then quickly dispersed throughout remote areas of the
country since the Peace Corps didn’t know what else to do,” said Fliés.

Just when they were starting to settle in, the group suffered the loss of its inspirational leader, President Kennedy, who
was assassinated on November 22, 1963. They would also live through a revolution and experience the trauma of the
overthrow of the Brazilian government by the military.

“Our Brazil project was the largest ever attempted in the more than fifty year history of the Peace Corps. This, plus the
startup difficulties of the Peace Corps in its first year and living in the remote interior of one of the world’s largest
underdeveloped countries, made for a most unique adventure and youthful odyssey,” said Fliés.

Towards the end of the book, Fliés sums up his adventure in these words: “As a young American who had rarely traveled
out of the Minnesota county in which I was raised, my epic journey to the remote central highlands of Brazil proved to be all
I could have hoped for. Indeed, just as its slogan promised, the Peace Corps became the toughest job I would ever love.”

“The greatest part of my adventure was discovering so much about myself,” said Fliés. “I did not speak to my family or
loved ones from the time I left the U.S. until I returned twenty-one months later. I learned how to survive physically and
emotionally, and how to create a purpose in my life and the lives of others.”

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Ken Fliés grew up on a dairy farm in Southeastern Minnesota and says he led a relatively sheltered life during his youth.
“I never left the county where I lived for the first time until my junior or senior year in high school when I went to the Twin Cities
for a basketball game,” he said.

Once there, all he could think about was getting back home; but it didn’t take long for him to get over his fear of the unknown.
In 1962, at the age of 19, he answered President Kennedy’s call to serve in one of the first groups of Peace Corps volunteers.
Fliés spent two years in a remote area of northeastern Brazil, doing work that became the forerunner of the Peace Corps’
eventual major theme of community development.

When he returned home, Fliés became an accomplished national and international business and social entrepreneur, involved
in the start-up and development of more than a dozen companies and organizations domestically and internationally.

In addition to being a pioneer in the Peace Corps and business, Fliés was a founder of the Rural America Writers’ Center
and Rural America Arts Partnership; and founded and assisted in developing what is now the Great River Ridge State Recreation Trail.

Ken Fliés was recognized by Minnesota Governors Tim Pawlenty and Mark Dayton, first in 2002 as an outstanding
rural entrepreneur and in 2012 for his entrepreneurial contributions to the State of Minnesota.

In addition to Into the Backlands, Fliés is also the co-author of the memoir Retrieving Isaac & Jason, published
by Hiawatha Press in 2012; and he collaborated on the novel Whispering Pines: Tales from a Northwood’s Cabin.
He has also authored numerous essays and articles on rural America and the American Civil War, and is a past recipient
of The Editor’s Choice Award of the National Library of Poetry.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: This article and the accompanying photography are available for your use copyright free and cost-free. High resolution photography is available for your use for free as well upon request. If you prefer to arrange an interview of your own with Ken Fliés, contact Rachel M. Anderson, Publicist, at 952-240-2513 or rachel@rmapublicity.com.