JOHN STEINBECK

John Steinbeck (1902-1968) was born in Salinas, and lived the early part of his life in Monterey County, California. It was here that Steinbeck developed a knowledge and love of the natural world and the diverse cultures that figure so prominently in his works. During the 1930s, his works included The Red Pony, Pastures of Heaven, Tortilla Flat, In Dubious Battle, and Of Mice and Men. The Grapes of Wrath, published in 1939, earned him a Pulitzer Prize.  In the 1940s, Steinbeck spent most of his time living in New York and traveling abroad. By then he was an internationally acclaimed author.  While he hobnobbed with the N.Y. elite, he wrote nostalgically of life on the Monterey waterfront in Cannery Row and Sweet Thursday. He traveled back and forth between the two coasts before settling in New York in 1950. His epic treatment of the Salinas Valley, East of Eden, was published in 1952. In the latter decades of his life, Steinbeck traveled extensively around the world, always writing. In 1962, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. On December 20, 1968, Steinbeck died in Sag Harbor, N.Y. His ashes were returned to California by his widow, Elaine and his younger son, John.

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