Joseph Heller

Joseph Heller grew up in Coney Island, Brooklyn, the son of Russian Jewish immigrants. His father, a delivery driver, died when Joseph was five. In World War II he flew 60 combat missions as a bombardier on B-25s from Corsica.

After the war he studied English at New York University and Columbia and spent a year at Oxford on a Fulbright scholarship. He taught writing for two years, then worked in advertising for magazines such as Time and McCall's while he wrote his first novel at night.

Catch-22 (1961) follows Yossarian, a bombardier who wants to stop flying missions but is trapped by a rule: anyone sane enough to ask to be grounded is fit to fly. The novel argues that war and large organizations run on logic that makes sense on paper and kills people in practice. Reviews were mixed at first, but it sold millions in paperback and its title entered the language. His later books include Something Happened (1974). He died in 1999, aged 76.