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Literary Story of the Week -
On September 14, 1964, John Steinbeck was presented the
U.S. Medal of Freedom. Steinbeck had already received numerous other honors and
awards for his writing, including the 1962 Nobel Prize and a 1939 Pulitzer
Prize. Steinbeck, a native Californian, studied writing intermittently at
Stanford between 1920 and 1925 but never graduated. He moved to New York and
worked as a manual laborer and journalist while writing his first two novels,
which were not successful. He married in 1930 and moved back to California with
his wife. His father, a government official in Salinas County, gave the couple
a house to live in while Steinbeck continued writing.
His first novel, Tortilla
Flat, about the comic antics of several rootless drifters who share a house
in California, was published in 1935. The novel became a financial success. Steinbeck’s
next works, In Dubious Battle and Of Mice and Men, were both successful,
and in 1938 his masterpiece The Grapes of
Wrath was published. The novel, about the struggles of an Oklahoma family
who lose their farm and become fruit pickers in California, won a Pulitzer
Prize in 1939.
After World War II, Steinbeck’s work became more
sentimental in such novels as Cannery Row
and The Pearl. He also wrote several
successful films, including Forgotten
Village (1941) and Viva Zapata
(1952). He became interested in marine biology and published a nonfiction book,
The Sea of Cortez, in 1941. His
travel memoir, Travels with Charlie,
describes his trek across the United States in a camper. Steinbeck died in New
York in December 20, 1968 and was buried the Garden of Memories in Salinas,
California.
Check back every
Friday for a new installment of “This Week in Literary History.”
Michael Thomas Barry is the author of six nonfiction
books that includes the award winning America’s
Literary Legends and Literary Legends
of the British Isles. Visit Michael’s website www.michaelthomasbarry.com for
more information. His books can be purchased from Amazon through the following
links:
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