John Hersey (John Richard Hersey) Biography
(1914–93), (John Richard Hersey), Hiroshima, The New Yorker, A Bell for Adano, The Wall
American writer, born in China, educated at Yale. He rose to fame through his Second World War reportage, most notably with Hiroshima (1946), an intense humanitarian analysis of the dropping of the first nuclear bomb; its initial publication occupied a whole issue of The New Yorker. Novels such as A Bell for Adano (1944; Pulitzer Prize) and The Wall (1950) are near-apocalyptic visions of the world during the 1940s. Some of his later work is science fiction; The Child Buyer (1960) is a dystopian satire on government and commerce, while White Lotus (1965), set in an alternative reality, posits a world dominated by China. Both books show a disappointed response to modern America.
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Literature Reference: American Literature, English Literature, Classics & Modern FictionEncyclopedia of Literature: John Hersey Biography to Honest Man's Revenge