UNITED STATES AUTHOR · FICTION · HISTORY
John Hersey
Also known as: John Richard Hersey, John R. Hersey
John Richard Hersey (June 17, 1914 – March 24, 1993) was an American writer and journalist. He is considered one of the earliest practitioners of the so-called New Journalism, in which storytelling techniques of fiction are adapted to non-fiction reportage. In 1999, Hiroshima, Hersey's account of the aftermath of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, was adjudged the finest work of American journalism of the 20th century by a 36-member panel associated with New York University's journalism department. John Hersey was born in Tientsin, China, the son of missionaries. He returned to the United States with his family at the age of ten. He attended the Hotchkiss School, then Yale University, then Cambridge University. In 1937 he worked as a secretary for Sinclair Lewis, and that fall he got a position at Time magazine. Two years later he was transferred to Time's Chongqing bureau. During World War II he reported on the war in both Europe and Asia, writing articles for Time, Life, and The New Yorker. He published several books during this time, including Men on Bataan, Into the Valley, A Bell for Adano (which won the Pulitzer Prize for the Novel in 1945), and Hiroshima, his most famous work (originally published in The New Yorker). He also wrote The Wall (1950) about the Warsaw Ghetto during the Holocaust. Hersey was the head of Pierson College at Yale University from 1965-1970, and he taught writing at the undergraduate level there.
Early in the morning of August 6, 1945, a big American bomber roars down the runway on a tiny island called Tinian.
— from Hiroshima
Most acclaimed
The marmot drive
1953
A novel about crowd psychology, relating certain events on two summer days in an out-of-the-way Connecticut village. The occasion is the decision of the villagers of Tuxnis to launch their long-debated drive to rid a nearby valley of an infestation of marmots.
Hiroshima
The bombing of Hiroshima was one of the pivotal events of the twentieth century, yet this controversial question remains unresolved. At the time, General Dwight Eisenhower, General Douglas MacArthur, and chief of staff Admiral William Leahy all agreed that an atomic attack on Japanese cities was unnecessary. All of them believed that Japan had already been beaten and that the war would soon end. Was the bomb dropped to end the war more quickly? Or did it herald the start of the Cold War? In his probing new study, prizewinning historian Ronald Takaki explores these factors and more. He considers the cultural context of race - the ways in which stereotypes of the Japanese influenced public opinion and policymakers - and also probes the human dimension. Relying on top secret military reports, diaries, and personal letters, Takaki relates international policies to the individuals involved: Los Alamos director J. Robert Oppenheimer, Secretary of State James Byrnes, Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson, and others... but above all, Harry Truman.
The wall
1998
I was born at the beginning of it all, on the Red side - the Communist side - of the Iron Curtain -- Through annotated illustrations, journals, maps, and dreamscapes, Peter Sis shows what life was like for a child who loved to draw, proudly wore the red scarf of a Young Pioneer, stood guard at the giant statue of Stalin, and believed whatever he was told to believe -- But adolescence brought questions -- Cracks began to appear in the Iron Curtain, and news from the West slowly filtered into the country -- Si;s learned about beat poetry, rock 'n' roll, blue jeans, and Coca-Cola -- He let his hair grow long, secretly read banned books, and joined a rock band -- Then came the Prague Spring of 1968, and for a teenager who wanted to see the world and meet the Beatles, this was a magical time -- It was short-lived, however, brought to a sudden and brutal end by the Soviet-led invasion -- But this brief flowering had provided a glimpse of new possibilities - creativity could be discouraged but not easily killed.