Facts about John Steinbeck

1. 05

   East of Eden, Steinbeck's 1952 novel set in California's Salinas Valley, took him nearly a decade to write and he considered it his masterwork.

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2. 04

   Steinbeck's 1945 novel Cannery Row was set in the actual sardine fishing community of Monterey, California, where the author lived during the 1930s.

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3. 03

   In 1939, The Grapes of Wrath was banned in Kern County, California, where Steinbeck set the novel, due to its unflattering portrayal of agricultural labor conditions.

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4. 02

   During his 1960 travels across America in a camper truck with his poodle Charley, John Steinbeck documented observations that became the book Travels with Charley.

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5. 01

   The 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature went to John Steinbeck at age fifty-nine for his realistic narrative gift and social observations of American life.

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