The style & technique of John STEINBECK

‘Anovelist who is also a true poet’ is how The Sunday Times described John Steinbeck. In 1962 he won the Nobel Prize in Literature for his ‘realistic and imaginative writings’. He wrote 33 books: sixteen novels, six non-fiction books, two collections of short stories and several novellas. Most of his work is set in California; he made his name with Dust Bowl fiction set among common people during the Great Depression of the 1930s.

How he began

Born in Salinas, central California, in 1902, Steinbeck graduated from Salinas High School and went on to study English literature at Stanford University, leaving in 1925 without a degree. He had spent summers working on ranches and then on sugar beet farms with migrant workers. After university, he moved to New York and took odd jobs while he tried to write. Having failed to get anything published, he returned to California. In 1930 he met and married Carol Henning, his first.