Shute, Nevil

(born Jan. 17, 1899, Ealing, Middlesex, Eng.—died Jan. 12, 1960, Melbourne, Vic., Australia) English-born Australian novelist. Trained as an aeronautical engineer, Shute drew on technical detail in his fiction. His early works include So Disdained (1928) and What Happened to the Corbetts (1939), a foretaste of the bombing of civilians in World War II. After the war he settled in Australia, where he set his later novels. Reflecting a growing despair about the future of humanity, they include A Town Like Alice (1950; film, 1956) and his best-known work, On The Beach (1957; film, 1959), a vivid picture of the nuclear annihilation of the human race.

Source: Encyclopedia Britannica