John Steinbeck
John Steinbeck Authors and Artists for Young Adults, 1994 Updated: July 19, 2004 Born: February 27, 1902 in Salinas, California, United States Died: December 20, 1968 in New York, New York, United States Other Names: Steinbeck, John Ernst, Jr.; Glasscock, Amnesia Nationality: American Occupation: Writer Writer. Had been variously employed as a hod carrier, fruit picker, ranch hand, apprentice painter, laboratory assistant, caretaker, surveyor, and reporter. Special writer for the United States Army during World War II. Foreign correspondent in North Africa and Italy for New York Herald Tribune, 1943; correspondent in Vietnam for Newsday, 1966-67. General Literature Gold Medal, Commonwealth Club of California, 1936, for Tortilla Flat, 1937, for novel Of Mice and Men, and 1940, for The Grapes of Wrath; New York Drama Critics Circle Award, 1938, for play Of Mice and Men; Academy Award nomination for best original story, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, 1944, for "Lifeboat," and 1945, for "A Medal for Benny"; Nobel Prize for literature, 1962; Paperback of the Year Award, Marketing Bestsellers, 1964, for Travels with Charley: In Search of America. Addresses: Contact: McIntosh & Otis, Inc., 310 Madison Ave., New York, NY 10017. "I hold that a writer who does not passionately believe in the perfectibility of man has no dedication nor any membership in literature." With this declaration, John Steinbeck accepted the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962, becoming only the fifth American to receive one of the most prestigious awards in writing. In announcing the award, Nobel committee chair Anders Osterling, quoted in the Dictionary of Literary Biography Documentary Series, described Steinbeck as "an independent expounder of the truth with an unbiased instinct for what is genuinely American, be it good or ill." This was a reputation the author had earned in a long and distinguished career that produced some of the twentieth century's most acclaimed and popular novels.
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