One of the leading American novelists of the 20th century, John Steinbeck (1902-1968) grew up in the fertile Salinas Valley in California, an environment that served as a setting for some of his best-loved books. Several of his most powerful novels, including Cannery Row, Of Mice and Men, and The Grapes of Wrath, focus on the plight of California's laboring class, while East of Eden is an ambitious family saga and The Pearl is a simple, yet effective telling of good vs evil. Steinbeck received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1962.