Damon Francis Knight was born on September 19, 1922, in Baker, Oregon.

An avid reader of science fiction since he was a young boy, Damon Knight moved for about ten years to New York, where he joined the group of the Futurians, science fiction fans many of whom became prominent figures in the field.

In 1941, Damon Knight published his first short story, “Resilience”, in the magazine Amazing Stories. In the following years, in addition to writing other stories, he also started being an editor and writing reviews of other people’s stories for various magazines achieving success with all those jobs.

In 1950, Damon Knight published the short story “To Serve Man”, which was awarded a Retro Hugo in 2001 and adapted for an episode of the famous TV show “The Twilight Zone”.

It was only in 1955 that Damon Knight published his first novel, “Hell’s Pavement”, derived from the stories “The Analogues” and “Turncoat”, published in previous years, with the addition of more original material. It’s a dystopia that shows the possible abuse of means of control of people that were originally created to prevent criminal behavior.

In 1956, Damon Knight published “In Search of Wonder”, a collection of critical articles and reviews mostly published in previous years in various magazines. In that year he was awarded a Hugo Award in the category of Best Book Reviewer.

On February 23, 1962, Damon Knight married Kate Wilhelm, also a science fiction writer. The two had a son. From a previous wedding, Knight had already had three children.

Damon Knight wasn’t particularly prolific as a writer because of his work as a critic and editor of magazines but also anthologies. Over the years, he was also the founder or co-founder of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA), the National Fantasy Fan Federation, the Milford Writer’s Workshop, and the Clarion Writers Workshop.

Despite his many activities, Damon Knight never stopped writing completely even if sometimes there was a gap of several years between his novels. His activity as a writer became prominent during the ’80s and several of his novels were published in the ’80s and ’90s such as the Sea Venture Trilogy, consisting of “CV” (1985), “The Observers” (1987), and “A Reasonable World” (1991). His last novel was “Humpty Dumpty: An Oval” in 1996.

Damon Knight died on April 15, 2002, in Eugene, Oregon, where he lived for a long time with his wife. The Grand Master Award, which he was awarded in 1994 by the SFWA, was called from that year the Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award in honor of a person who’s been important to the growth of science fiction in several ways.