Jewish American Writer Joseph Heller

Contents Brief Introdution 1 Works 2 Early and Later Years 3 Black Comedy 4

Brief Introdution Born: May 1, 1923( ) Brooklyn, New York Died: December 12, 1999 (aged 76) Long Island, New York Occupation: Novelist, Short story writer, Playwright Genres :Satire, Black comedy Notable work(s): Catch-22 Joseph Heller at the Miami Book Fair International of 1986

Joseph Heller was an American satirical novelist, short story writer and playwright,who wrote the influential novel Catch-22 about American servicemen during World War II. Heller is widely regarded as one of the best post-World War II satirists. Although he is remembered primarily for Catch-22, his other works center on the lives of various members of the middle class and remain exemplars of modern satire.

Works Short stories Catch As Catch Can: The Collected Stories and Other Writings (2003) Autobiographies No Laughing Matter (1986) Now And Then (1998)

Novels Catch-22 (1961) God Knows (1984 Good as Gold (1979) Something Happened (1974) Closing Time (1994) Picture This (1988) Portrait of an Artist, as an Old Man (2000)

Plays We Bombed in New Haven (1967) Catch 22 (1973) Clevinger's Trial (1973) Screenplays Sex and the Single Girl (1964) Casino Royale (1967) Dirty Dingus Magee (1970)

Early years As a teenager: wrote a story about the Russian invasion of Finland and sent it to New York Daily News, which rejected it In 1941: spent the next year working as a blacksmith's apprentice, a messenger boy, and a filing clerk At age 19: he joined the U.S. Army Air Corps. Two years later he was sent to Italy, where he flew 60 combat missions as a B-25 bombardier. After the war, studied English at the University of Southern California and NYU on the G.I. Bill In 1949, received his M.A. in English from Columbia University

Later years In the 1970s, Heller taught creative writing at the City College of New York On Sunday, December 13, 1981, Heller was diagnosed with Guillain-Barré syndrome, a debilitating syndrome that was to leave him temporarily paralyzed In 1984, while in the process of divorcing his wife of 35 years, he met Valerie Humphries, the nurse who had helped him to recover, and later married her

in 1991,Heller returned to St. Catherine's as a visiting Fellow and was appointed an Honorary Fellow of the college In 1998, he released a memoir, Now and Then: From Coney Island to Here in December 1999,He died of a heart attack at his home,shortly after the completion of his final novel, Portrait of an Artist, as an Old Man

Black comedy Black comedy is a sub-genre of comedy and satire in which topics and events that are usually regarded as taboo are treated in a satirical or humorous manner while retaining their seriousness. Black comedy is commonly used in dramatic or satirical films, retaining its serious tone. The term is credited to the Anthology of Black Humor In the United States, black comedy as a literary genre came to prominence in the 1950s and 1960s. Black comedy is a prevalent theme of many cult films, television shows and video games.

Writers such as William Faulkner, Thomas Pynchon, Kurt Vonnegut, Warren Zevon, Patrick Hamilton, Joseph Heller, Mark Twain, Martin McDonagh, Louis-Ferdinand Céline and George Bernard Shaw have written novels, poems, stories, plays and songs in which profound or horrific events were portrayed in a comic manner.

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