Fill in the blanks with words from the list below.
______ 1 ______as one of America's classic modern writers.
His best known novels are The Grapes of Wrath( Pulitzer Prize in 1940), Of Mice and Men, Tortilla Flat and The Red Pony .
When he won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962, he stated "I hold that a writer who does not passionately believe in the perfectibility of man has no ______ 2 ______ nor any membership in literature."
He is only the fifth American to receive one of the most ______ 3______ awards in writing.
Steinbeck is described as "an independent
______ 4 _____
of the truth with an ______ 5 _____ instinct for what is genuinely American, be it good or ill."
Steinbeck was born in Salinas, California, in 1902. After graduating from Salinas High School in 1919, Steinbeck attended college at nearby Stanford University until 1925. After leaving Stanford, Steinbeck worked on short stories and on his first novel, Cup of Gold: A Life of Henry Morgan, Buccaneer, which he completed in 1928.
Two weeks after Cup of Gold was released, the stock market ______ 6 ____ , and the Great Depression had begun. Steinbeck had become a published author, but he had not achieved a
______ 7 ____voice that pleased him.
He also watched the explosion of unemployment and misery caused by the Depression. In the next ten years these social concerns became a vital source of material and inspiration for his work.
Steinbeck has worked on ______ 8 ____ jobs as a store clerk, surveyor, and painter. When he worked as a ranch hand near King City, California, he experienced the ____ 9______ and surroundings that are later featured in Of Mice and Men.
Tortilla Flat made Steinbeck a popular author. In this book, Steinbeck wrote about the slums of Monterey and a group of good-natured Mexican American characters -- the paisanos.
The plot Of Mice and Men centers on George Milton and Lennie Small, ______11_____ ranch hands who dream of one day owning a small farm. George acts as a father figure to Lennie, who is large and simpleminded, calming him and helping to rein in his immense physical strength.
When The Grapes of Wrath was published in 1939, America, was recovering from the Great Depression. The book brought this time to life in a ____ 12 ____ , lyrical way. In this marvel of observation and ______13____, Steinbeck chronicled the Joad family's "refusal, even inability, to let go of their faltering but unmistakable hold on human _______14______ ." and it won the Pulitzer for him in 1940.
The Pearl is a retelling of an old Mexican folk tale involving the discovery of a great pearl and the
____ 15 ____ misfortune of the fisherman who found it.
Steinbeck's books remain so readable and ____16____
for any audience that they are favorites of both young adults and their teachers.