Catch-22 is the novel that stands at the center of Joseph Heller's literary reputation, a work of black comedy and satire that drew on his gifts for irony and dark wit.

Heller was born on 1 May 1923 in Coney Island, New York City, and received his early education at Abraham Lincoln High School. He went on to study at Columbia University and later at St Catherine's College, and during part of his education he held a Fulbright Scholarship. Those years of formal study helped shape a writer who would work in several forms: novels, plays, screenplays, autobiography, and journalism, all composed in English. His literary inclinations ran consistently toward satire and black comedy.

Catch-22 was the foundation from which a substantial body of work extended across the following decades. Among his notable novels were Something Happened, Good as Gold, God Knows, Picture This, and Closing Time. He also produced No Laughing Matter, the autobiographical Now and Then, and Portrait of an Artist, as an Old Man. The range of these titles — moving between fiction, memoir, and satire — reflects the breadth of Heller's engagement with prose writing throughout his career.

Recognition for his work came from more than one direction. In addition to the Fulbright Scholarship that supported his education, he received the Prix Médicis étranger. Heller died on 12 December 1999, having worked as a novelist, playwright, screenwriter, autobiographer, and journalist over the course of his life.