Nico Walker

Walker grew up in Atlanta, Las Vegas, and Cleveland. He dropped out of college and enlisted in the Army at the age of 19. For his service in Iraq, Walker received seven medals and commendations. He is scheduled to be released from prison in November 2020.

Cherry was shortlisted for the 2019 Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award.

From 2005 to 2006, Walker served as an Army medic in Iraq, going on more than 250 combat missions. After returning to civilian life, he suffered from undiagnosed PTSD, was depressed and traumatized, and became addicted to heroin. To fund his habit, he robbed ten banks around Cleveland in a span of four months, beginning in December 2010. He was arrested in April 2011, pled guilty in 2012 and was given an eleven-year sentence. In 2013, while Walker was behind bars in the Federal Correctional Institution in Ashland, Kentucky, he was profiled in BuzzFeed. This led to a correspondence with Matthew Johnson, a publisher at the independent press Tyrant Books. Johnson sent Walker books and encouraged him to write about his life. He spent nearly four years writing and rewriting.

Nicholas Walker (born February 28, 1985) is an American author and US Army veteran currently serving time in prison for bank robbery. His semi-autobiographical debut novel, Cherry, was published by Alfred A. Knopf on August 14, 2018.