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John Steinbeck (1902-1968)
Who?
US novelist and 1962 Nobel Prize winner who brought the struggles of the rural poor, particularly in his home state of California, to the attention of a wide audience who may otherwise have remained ignorant of the destruction of a whole way of life.
Must reads
Tortilla Flat (1935), In Dubious Battle (1936), Of Mice and Men (1937), The Grapes of Wrath (1939), Cannery Row (1945), East of Eden (1952), The Winter of Our Discontent (1961) and Travels With Charley: In Search of America (1962).
Darkest hour
Working as an agricultural labourer before he was well-known.
Greatest triumph
The Grapes of Wrath led to urgently needed reform of farming in the US.
Essential quotes
'Man, unlike any other thing organic or inorganic in the universe, grows beyond his work, walks up the stairs of his concepts, emerges ahead of his accomplishments.' (The Grapes of Wrath)
'Well, maybe like Casy says, a fellow ain't got a soul of his own, but on'y a piece of a big one – an then – . . . Then it don' matter.' (The Grapes of Wrath)
'A journey is like a marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it.' (Travels With Charley)
Did u know?
He studied marine biology at Stanford University.
Films versions
James Dean starred in a 1955 film of East of Eden and Henry Fonda, Jane Darwell and John Carradine led the cast of the landmark film The Grapes of Wrath in 1940.
What to say
The realism and journalistic eye for detail in his social novels made his best works powerful studies of human pain, but his later work was frequently undermined by sentimentality.
Don't say
Didn't he make pianos?
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