Birth of John Steinbeck

John Steinbeck was born on 27 February 1902 in Salinas. An American writer from Salinas, California, Steinbeck wrote about ordinary people, particularly workers and migrants, in his home state. His novels include Of Mice and Men, East of Eden and The Grapes of Wrath, which portrays a family of dispossessed farmers fleeing the Dust Bowl during the Great Depression and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1940. He also wrote Tortilla Flat and Cannery Row, and studied marine biology with his friend Ed Ricketts. In World War II he worked as a war correspondent. His travel book Travels with Charley recounts a trip across America with his dog. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1962.

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