Joseph Heller

American writer

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Lived 1923–1999, aged 76United States

United States WritersWriter / Author

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Wikipedia
53 languages
Cross-language footprint
Era
1923–1999
Aged 76

Summary

Updated 2026-05-29

Joseph Heller wrote Catch-22, the 1961 war satire whose title became shorthand for impossible choices. That debut novel launched him into enough literary orbit to rack up at least two Nobel Prize nominations.

Biography

About

Joseph Heller was an American author of novels, short stories, plays, and screenplays. His best-known work is his debut novel Catch-22 (1961), a satire on war and bureaucracy, whose title has become a synonym for an absurd or contradictory choice. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature at least twice, in 1972 and 1975.

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