Book Synopsis A young American engineer sent to China travels up the Yangtze River and is drawn into a dramatic climax of cultural interplay. Review Quotes In a deceptively simple story, Hersey has captured all the magic, the terror and the drama of that extraordinary stretch of water....Even in Mr. Herseys hands, the Americans discoveries of his own mind and of the Chinese people are dwarfed by the laws, the demands and the ageless vitality of the Yangtze. -- The New York Times Book Review A rewarding novel; it is clearly thought and beautifully projected on the screen of the imagination. -- Atlantic About the Author John Hersey was born in Tientsin, China, in 1914 and lived there until 1925, when his family returned to the United States. He studied at Yale and Cambridge, served for a time as Sinclair Lewiss secretary, and then worked several years as a journalist. Beginning in 1947, he devoted his time mainly to writing fiction. He won the Pulitzer Prize, taught for two decades at Yale, and was president of the Authors League of America and chancellor of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. John Hersey died in 1993.