Conrad Michael Richter, recipient of a 1961 National Book Award for The Waters of Kronos, a 1951 Pulitzer Prize for The Town, and other prizes for fiction on historical and modern subjects, was born in Pine Grove, Pennsylvania. He resided there and in Albuquerque, New Mexico, most of his life. During his literary career spanning more than half a century, he had fourteen novels, three book-length philosophical essays, and five volumes of his many short stories published. Six of his novels were adapted for motion pictures and television.

Eldest of three sons, Richter grew up in the Pennsylvania towns where his father studied for and then served in the Lutheran ministry. The family's connection with the ministry figures strongly in two of Richter's best novels, The Waters of Kronos (1960) and A Simple Honorable Man (1962); and it obliquely touches many of his other works. Graduated in 1906 from Tremont High School, Richter...