John Steinbeck

Steinbeck, John (1902–68), U.S. author who came to the fore in the 1930s with his novels about poverty and social injustice. The Grapes of Wrath (1939), about Depression-era farm workers migrating from the Midwest's Dust Bowl to California, won a Pulitzer Prize. Other works include Tortilla Flat (1935), Of Mice and Men (1937), Cannery Row (1945), East of Eden (1952), and The Winter of Our Discontent (1961). He was awarded the 1962 Nobel Prize in literature.