John Steinbeck

John Ernst Steinbeck Jr. was an American author, short story writer, and journalist active during the late 1920s and into the early 1960s, who won both a Pulitzer for his novel The Grapes of Wrath and earned himself the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1962. In grand total, Steinbeck wrote twenty-seven books, including sixteen novels, six non-fiction works, and two collections of short stories. What I love about John Steinbeck is that he was an author who wanted to live and breathe his material, thus why most of his writing stems from his personal experience. I have been a huge fan of John Steinbeck since I was in high school when I read Of Mice and Men, a novella that seriously messed with my head in the aftermath of its conclusion, and if you have read any one of Steinbeck’s novels I am certain you’ve encountered the same results. From his own firsthand knowledge, Steinbeck’s work casts a light on the Great Depression as well as the hardships endured by the migratory farm workers of California, two things that greatly affected both him and those closest to him. Steinbeck could even be defined as a “method writer”, similar to the method actor, and this is due to the fact that he actively inserted himself into the labor industry so that he could better understand the true struggles the every-day workingman faced in such troubled times. So, who exactly was John Steinbeck, and what was it that catalyzed the inspiration to write about such tragic yet real themes in his work?
Well let’s find out together, shall we?