John Steinbeck

John Steinbeck (1902–1968) was an American novelist, short-story writer and journalist whose work is closely associated with California, particularly the agricultural communities and coastal towns of the Salinas Valley. Born in Salinas, he drew extensively on the landscape, labour conditions and social divisions of his home state. His major works include Of Mice and Men, The Grapes of Wrath, East of Eden, Cannery Row and The Pearl. Steinbeck’s writing often combines plain, accessible prose with sympathy for migrant workers, farm labourers and people living on the margins of society. The Grapes of Wrath, his account of the Joad family’s migration during the Great Depression, won the Pulitzer Prize, and Steinbeck received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1962.

Many of Steinbeck’s novels now function as important portrayals of twentieth-century American history, although they were generally contemporary fiction when published rather than historical novels in the strict sense. The Grapes of Wrath depicts the Dust Bowl migration, agricultural exploitation and labour unrest of the 1930s, while In Dubious Battle concerns striking migrant fruit pickers in California. The Moon Is Down explores occupation and resistance during the Second World War, and Once There Was a War collects Steinbeck’s wartime journalism. East of Eden, which follows two families across several generations from the late nineteenth century to the First World War, is the clearest of his major works to fit modern definitions of a historical novel.