John 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, Hersey's account of the aftermath of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, was adjudged the finest piece of American journalism of the 20th century by a 36-member panel associated with New York University's journalism department.

Background

Hersey was born in Tientsin, China, the son of Grace Baird and Roscoe Hersey, Protestant missionaries for the YMCA in Tientsin. Hersey learned to speak Chinese before he spoke English. Later he based his novel, '' The Call'' (1985), on the lives of his parents and several other missionaries of their generation.

John Hersey was a descendant of William Hersey (or Hercy, as the family name was then spelled) of Reading, Berkshire, England. William Hersey was one of the first settlers of Hingham, Massachusetts in 1635.

Hersey returned to the United States with his family when he was ten years old. He attended public school in Briarcliff Manor, New York, including Briarcliff High School for two years. At Briarcliff, he became his troop's first Eagle Scout. Later he attended the Hotchkiss School. He studied at Yale University, where he was a member of the Skull and Bones Society along with classmates Brendan Gill and Richard A. Moore.

Hersey lettered in football at Yale, where he was coached by Ducky Pond, Greasy Neale, and Gerald Ford. He was a teammate of Larry Kelley and Clint Frank, Yale's two Heisman Trophy winners. He subsequently was selected as a Mellon Fellow for graduate study at the University of Cambridge.

Career

After his time at Cambridge, Hersey got a summer job as private secretary and driver for author Sinclair Lewis during 1937. He chafed at those duties, and that autumn he began work for ''Time'', for which he was hired after writing an essay on the magazine's dismal quality. Two years later (1939) he was transferred to ''Times Chongqing bureau. In 1940, William Saroyan lists him among "contributing editors" at ''Time'' in the play, ''Love's Old Sweet Song''.

During World War II, ''Newsweekly'' correspondent Hersey covered the fighting in Europe and Asia. He wrote articles for ''Time'' and ''Life'' magazines. He accompanied Allied troops on their invasion of Sicily, survived four airplane crashes, and was commended by the Secretary of the Navy for his role in helping evacuate wounded soldiers from Guadalcanal. Before writing ''Hiroshima'', Hersey published his novel ''Of Men and War'', an account of war stories seen through the eyes of soldiers rather than a war correspondent. One of the stories in Hersey's novel was inspired by future President John F. Kennedy, who also happened to be a former paramour of Hersey's wife Frances Ann. During the Solomon Islands campaign, Kennedy commanded a PT-109 that was cut in half by a Japanese destroyer. He led the rescue of his crew, personally towing the injured to safety.

After the war, during the winter of 1945–46, Hersey was in Japan, reporting for ''The New Yorker'' on the reconstruction of the devastated country, when he found a document written by a Jesuit missionary who had survived the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. The journalist visited the missionary, who introduced him to other survivors.

Reporting from Hiroshima

Soon afterward John Hersey began discussions with William Shawn, an editor for ''The New Yorker'', about a lengthy piece on the previous summer's bombing. Hersey proposed a story that would convey the cataclysmic narrative through individuals who survived.

In May 1946, Hersey traveled to Japan, where he spent three weeks doing research and interviewing survivors. He returned to America during late June and began writing the stories of six Hiroshima survivors: a German Jesuit priest, a widowed seamstress, two doctors, a minister, and a young woman who worked in a factory.

The resulting piece was his most notable work, the 31,000-word article " Hiroshima", which was published in the August 31, 1946, issue of ''The New Yorker''. The story dealt with the atomic bomb dropped on that Japanese city on August 6, 1945, and its effects on the six survivors. The article occupied almost the entire issue of the magazine – something ''The New Yorker'' had never done before.

Later books and college master's job

Hersey often decried the New Journalism, although he had helped create it. He would probably have disagreed that his "Hiroshima" article should be described as New Journalism. Later, the ascetic Hersey came to feel that some elements of the New Journalism of the 1970s were not rigorous enough about fact and reporting. After publication of ''Hiroshima'', Hersey noted that "the important 'flashes' and 'bulletins' are already forgotten by the time yesterday morning's paper is used to line the trash can. The things we remember are emotions and impressions and illusions and images and characters: the elements of fiction.""Awakening a Sleeping Giant the Call", R. Z. Sheppard, ''TIME'', May 6, 1985
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Soon after writing ''Hiroshima'', the former war correspondent began publishing mostly fiction. Hersey's war novel ''The Wall'' (1950) was presented as a rediscovered journal recording the genesis and destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto, the largest of the Jewish ghettos established by Nazi Germany during the Holocaust. The book became a bestseller. It also won the National Jewish Book Award

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