Here’s an essay of author Walter M. Miller and his classic apocalyptic novel A Canticle for Leibowitz. “Along with Ray Bradbury’s “The Martian Chronicles,” “A Canticle for Leibowitz” was one of the first novels to escape from the science-fiction ghetto and become a staple of high-school reading lists.”

Within the cathedral of post-apocalyptic and dystopian literature, there ought to be a small sanctum reserved for books produced out of the author’s personal experience with cataclysmic events. Other works that fit into this niche include Kurt Vonnegut’s “Slaughterhouse Five,” which was inspired by the writer having witnessed the fire-bombing of Dresden, and “The Forever War,” Joe Haldeman’s 1974 novel, which drew directly on his tour of duty in Vietnam.

(via Books, Inq.)