John Hersey

John Hersey, the son of US missionary parents, was born inChina on17th June, 1914. After graduating fromYale University he became correspondent in theFar East forTime Magazine.

During theSecond World War Hersey also wrote forLife magazine and theNew Yorker. He accompanied theUS Army in the invasion ofSicily andItaly. Hersey used some of the information he gathered as a war journalist for his best-selling novel A Bell for Adano (1944). The book won thePulitzer Prize in 1945.

In 1944 Hersey covered the war in thePacific and his many articles included one detailing the heroism of LieutenantJohn F Kennedy when his Motor Torpedo Boat was sunk close to theSoloman Islands.

Hersey was one of the first western journalists to arrive inHiroshima after theatom bomb explosion on 6th August 1945. Commission by theNew Yorker to write a series of articles on the effects of a nuclear explosion, he decided to focus on the experiences of six people who had been in the city: two doctors, a Protestant minister, a widowed seamstress, a young female factory worker and a German Catholic priest. When the editor saw the articles he decided to devote one issue (31st August, 1946) to the material. Later that year it was published as the book Hiroshima (1946).

Other books by Hersey include the Child Buyer (1947), The War Lover (1959), Under the Eye of the Storm (1967), The Walnut Door (1977), Antonietta (1991) and Key West Tales (1993). John Hersey died inKey West,Florida, on 24th March, 1993.

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