A single pebble

17 June 1914 – 24 March 1993

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, *Hiroshima,* Hersey's account of the aftermath of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, was adjudged the finest work of American journalism of the 20th century by a 36-member panel associated with New York University's journalism department. John Hersey was born in Tientsin, China, the son of missionaries. He returned to the United States with his family at the age of ten. He attended the Hotchkiss School, then Yale Uni…