John Steinbeck

John Ernst Steinbeck was born in Salinas, California, in 1902. He is considered one of the greatest writers of the first half of the 20th century, a key representative of naturalism and social literature in his country. His work focused on the working class of the 1930s, during the era of the Great Depression in the American economy. Despite the pessimism brought by the naturalistic approach, his work is imbued with poetic and humanitarian elements, portraying his characters as real people. Steinbeck gained recognition with the novel "Tortilla Flat" in 1935, but major success came in 1937 with "Of Mice and Men." Two years later, with "The Grapes of Wrath," he was established alongside Faulkner and Hemingway as one of the three great contemporary American writers. In 1940, his novel was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. During World War II, Steinbeck worked as a war correspondent for the "New York Herald Tribune," and in 1948, at a time when the U.S. was gripped by anti-communist hysteria, he traveled to the Soviet Union. He was a personal friend of two American presidents: John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1962. Steinbeck passed away in New York in 1968. His most famous and widely read novels include: "In Dubious Battle," "Of Mice and Men," "The Wayward Bus," "The Grapes of Wrath," "East of Eden," "Tortilla Flat," "The Pastures of Heaven," and others.