Walter M. Miller Jr.

Biography

Walter Michael Miller Jr. (1923–1996) was an American science fiction writer, best known for A Canticle for Leibowitz (1960), one of the most acclaimed science fiction novels ever written. Miller served as a tail gunner and radio operator in World War II, participating in the bombing of the Monte Cassino monastery, an experience that profoundly shaped his fiction. After the war, he published numerous short stories in science fiction magazines during the 1950s before retreating from public life. He struggled with depression for decades and died by suicide in 1996.