The Red Pony

JOHN STEINBECK was an American author of over fifty works, including novels, non-fiction works, and short story collections. Born in Salinas, California in 1902, Steinbeck grew up in an agricultural valley near the Pacific Coast, which both served as the settings for some of his best fiction. He attended Stanford University and worked as a laborer and journalist in New York City before writing his first novel, Cup of Gold, in 1929. He continued to write major novels through the rest of his years, including Of Mice and Men and The Grapes of Wrath, winner of the National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize in 1939, in addition to becoming a filmmaker and a student of marine biology in the early 1940s. In his later years, he produced major titles such as Cannery Row, Travels with Charley in Search of America, and East of Eden. In 1964, Steinbeck was presented the United States Medal of Freedom. He died in New York in 1968. He remains one of America's greatest writers and cultural figures today.