Born in Salinas, California, Steinbeck studied at Stanford University for six years, but attended classes sporadically and never completed his degree. He moved to New York City in 1925, where he worked briefly as a bricklayer and reporter. Two years later, he returned to California and began his career as a novelist. By the late 1930s, Steinbeck earned both critical recognition and popular success for his populist novels, including Tortilla Flat (1935), In Dubious Battle (1936) and Of Mice and Men (1937). His writing used naturalistic language and displayed a powerful social conscience, bringing to life the everyday struggles of the poor in Depression-era America. His most famous novel, The Grapes of Wrath (1939), followed a displaced Oklahoma farm family which travels to California in desperate search for work.
During World War II, Steinbeck worked as a war correspondent in Italy and Northern Africa for the New York Herald Tribune. After the war, he continued writing novels and did occasional screenwriting for Hollywood. His later work remained popular, especially the novel East of Eden (1952) and the crosscountry travel diary Travels with Charley (1962), but never received the critical acclaim granted his 1930s novels. In 1962, he received the Nobel Prize for literature "for his realistic as well as imaginative writings, distinguished by a sympathetic humor and keen social perception."
SOURCES: Cambridge Dictionary of American Biography; Encyclopedia of American Biography; Steinbeck Center Foundation web site. |
