Hersey spent his first ten years in China with his missionary parents and spoke Chinese before he learned English. He was educated at Yale University and Cambridge University where he was a graduate student. After a short period as secretary/driver for Sinclair Lewis in 1937, he joined the staff of Time magazine. In 1939, because of his knowledge of Chinese, he was transferred to the Chongging bureau. During the war, Hersey continued reporting as a war correspondent in both Europe and Asia. After the war, Hersey was in Japan working for The New Yorker when he met a survivor from Hiroshima. A year later in 1946, he published Hiroshima in the New Yorker which dedicated its entire issue to the piece. The result was a phenomenal success with both the public and critics alike. Hersey's first novel, A Bell for Adano (1945), won him the Pulitzer Prize and was subsequently a successful film. In 1965, Hersey became Master of Pierson College for the next five years and continued to teach and lecture into his final years while continuing to produce quality works. He held numerous honorary degrees, was a chancellor of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and a president of the Author's League of America. His other works include Men on Bataan (1942), Into the Valley (1943), The Wall (1950), A Single Pebble (1956), The Child Buyer (1960), White Lotus (1965), The Conspiracy (1972), Aspects of the Presidency (1980), The Call (1985) and Life Sketches (1989). |
