Author



** John Steinbeck is an American author. He was born February the 27th in 1902 in the Sailans Valley region of California. Steinbeck was the son of the chief cashier John Ernst Steinbeck and teacher Olive Hamilton Steinbeck. John graduated at Salinas High School in 1919, and was a student at Stanford University from 1919 to 1925 ****. ** For many readers, John Steinbeck is considered to be a romanticist. Feelings and fantasy is important in Steinbeck’s books and his writing is recognized with a warm humanity, much humour and a wide epic storytelling. Salains Valley, the place where John grew up, was a culturally diverse place of rich migratory and immigrant history. During his years of growth, he often spent his summers working on nearby ranches, often with migrants. ' He became aware of the harsher aspects of migrant life, and he felt pity for them. Many of his books therefore focus on this subject and he also has related many of his books to his birthplace, giving many of his works a distinct sense of place. Steinbeck made his first appearance in 1929 with the novel //Cup of gold// followed by //The Pastures of Heaven// in 1932 and //To a god Unkown// in 1933.He got popular in 1935 with the little ‘’loose’’ //Tortilla Flat//, but his major breakthrough came in 1939 with the novel //Of mice and men// which he dramatized by himself. This novel, which is about two farmers, George and Lennie who are trying to find their own land, got very popular in the public. Even though //Of mice and men// got very popular, John Steinbeck didn’t receive any major awards until 1962. Then he won the Nobel Prize for Literature because of his ‘’ realistic and imaginative writing, combining as it does sympathetic humor and keen social perception’’ (http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h3905.html).

John Steinbeck got a lot of attention when he in 1935 became member of the communistic organization //League of American Writer//Even though he was a member of this organization, he didn’t call himself a communist. At this time in his life, he was married to the Marxist Carol Henning and this may be some of the reason why he joined this organization. Even though John has been accused for being a communist, he was still a very popular, and he was one of the leading novel -authors during the 20th century and many of his works have been dramatized. As in matter of fact, sixteen of his stories have been made film of. The novel //Of mice and men// has actually been filmed two times, in 1939 and in 1992.

In all he wrote twenty-five books, including sixteen novels, six none fiction books and several collections of short stories. He died on December 20, in 1968 in New York of heart attack. He was 66 years old.