Joseph Heller was a highly regarded American novelist, renowned for his satirical works of fiction and plays. Born in Coney Island, Brooklyn, New York, on May 1, 1923, Heller was the son of poor Jewish parents who had emigrated from Russia. From a young age, Heller showed a keen interest in writing, penning a story about the Russian invasion of Finland at the age of eleven. Although the story was rejected by the Daily News in New York, this did not deter Heller from pursuing his passion for writing.
After graduating from high school, Heller spent a year working in various jobs, including as a blacksmith's apprentice, a messenger boy, and a filing clerk. However, in 1942, at the age of 19, Heller joined the Air Corps division of the United States Army, where he trained as a bombardier. He was subsequently sent to Italy, where he participated in sixty combat missions during the Second World War. Despite the danger and intensity of these missions, Heller maintained a positive attitude towards the war, describing it as "fun in the beginning" and feeling a sense of glory in his participation.
Heller considered his war experiences to be "milk runs," implying that they were relatively easy and uneventful. After the war, Heller attended the Southern California University, where he studied English, and later enrolled at New York University on the G.I. Bill. He went on to teach at Pennsylvania State University for two years before embarking on a successful career in the advertising departments of Time, Look, and McCall's magazines. It was during this time that Heller began working on his most famous novel, Catch-22, which took him eight years to complete and was first published in 1961. Heller went on to publish several other novels, including Something Happened in 1974, Good As Gold in 1979, and Closing Time in 1994, as well as the play We Bombed in New Haven.