Joseph Heller

Joseph Heller (1923–1999) was an American novelist and short-story writer best known for the satirical war novel *Catch-22* (1961). Born in Brooklyn, New York, he served as a bombardier in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II, an experience that informed his darkly comic view of military bureaucracy. After the war he studied at the University of Southern California and later earned a master’s degree at Columbia University. Heller worked in advertising and as a magazine writer before turning to fiction. He went on to publish novels including *Something Happened* (1974) and *Closing Time* (1994). He died in 1999.