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Joseph Heller
Life Time
1 May 1923 - 12 December 1999
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Heller, Joseph (Heller, Joseph) (1923–1999), American novelist. The author of the grotesque and satirical novel "Amendment-22" ("Catch-22", in former Russian translations - "Catch-22"), the classics of American "black comedy". He was born on May 1, 1923 in Brooklyn. During World War II, he flew a B-25 bomber, as did Yossarian, the hero of his Correction-22. In 1949 he received a Master of Arts degree from Columbia University. In 1949-1950 he conducted scientific work at Oxford on the Fulbright scholarship
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Heller, Joseph (Heller, Joseph) (1923–1999), American novelist. The author of the grotesque and satirical novel "Amendment-22" ("Catch-22", in former Russian translations - "Catch-22"), the classics of American "black comedy".
He was born on May 1, 1923 in Brooklyn. During World War II, he flew a B-25 bomber, as did Yossarian, the hero of his Correction-22. In 1949 he received a Master of Arts degree from Columbia University. In 1949-1950 he conducted scientific work at Oxford on the Fulbright scholarship program. He taught at the University of Pennsylvania (1950-1952), wrote advertising texts for Time and Esquire (1952-1958), was an advertising agent for McCalls magazine. In 1961 he left this job to lead creative workshops on prose and drama at Yale University and Pennsylvania State University. His first stories appeared in The Atlantic Mansley and Esquire in his student years.
In 1953 he began work on the novel “Amendment-22”. The book marked the beginning of experiments in the genre of war novel, anticipating such works as "V.T. Pynchona" and "Slaughterhouse number five, or the Crusade of children" by K. Vonnegut. Heller's villains are not the Germans or the Japanese, but the American military - political tycoons who profit from war, and sadists who enjoy violence. The novel was filmed by M. Nicholas in 1970. The expression “Amendment-22” entered the lexicon of Americans, denoting any predicament, and the name of the hero became a household name.
In 1994, a sequel to the novel titled “Closing Time” was released. The action takes place 50 years after the war, among the main characters are several new, but there are also old ones - Yossarian and some others.
Heller also wrote the novels Something Happened (1974), Good as Gold (1979), God Knows (1984) and Picture This (1988). Something Happened is the inner monologue of a successful businessman about his personal and business life. Pure Gold tells the story of a Jewish professor who cannot resist the temptation to excel materially, literaryly, and personally. God knows the story of David in the Bible. Heller also wrote the play We Bombed in New Haven (1969), which survived 86 Broadway performances. No Laughing Matter (1986), written with Speed Vogel, tells the story of Heller’s struggle with a rare ailment that leads to paralysis. In his other autobiographical book, Now and Then (1998), he returns to his childhood in Brooklyn’s Coney Island Amusement Park of the 1920s and 1930s. His latest novel, Portrait of An Artist As An Old Man, published posthumously in 2000, follows a popular writer seeking inspiration for a new novel.
Heller died at his home on Long Island on December 13, 1999.