John Steinbeck
On February 27, 1902 in Salinas, California, one of the greatest authors in history, John Steinbeck, is born. His mother, Olive Hamilton, was a school teacher while his father, John Ernst Steinbeck Sr., was the county treasurer. As he grew, Steinbeck discovered his love for writing and knew that he wanted to be a writer since he was a young boy. Over the summers during his years in high school, Steinbeck worked on farms and ranches as a "hired hand" (Doyle). After he graduated high school, he went to Stanford for six years, but he did not ever receive a degree. He left for New York in 1925 to pursue his dream to be a successful author. Originally, Steinbeck could not find anyone to publish his work. During that time, he was a reporter, bricklayer, and manual laborer. After being unsuccessful in his search for a publisher, he returned to California in 1927 where he created his first series of novels. From there, he decided to go to Oklahoma. While there, he lived and worked with a family of farmers that were on about to head towards California. He stayed with them for two years, and his time there was the groundwork for his novel, Grapes of Wrath. The novel was viewed in a wide range of ways. Some viewed his work rather critically while others loved his writing. The Associated Farmers of California were amongst the people who despised the novel because they deemed the novel to be "a pack of lies" (Doyle) because they didn't appreciate the way Californian farmers were portrayed. Along with his novel came trouble. The FBI put him under surveillance, he was thought to be a Communist, and Steinbeck received many death threats. Despite the negatives, Steinbeck continued to write more novels and eventually won the Pulitzer Prize in 1940 and Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962. He later moved back to New York City where he died on December 20, 1968.
facts about grapes of wrath
- It became an award-winning Hollywood film
- It took Steinbeck 5 months of research
- It was published in 1939
- It won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction
- It won the Nobel Prize for Literature
- Many films were created based on the novel between 1939-1940