The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, both repels and attracts you. In Roosevelt’s nationally syndicated newspaper column, “My Day,” which ran six days a week, she wrote: “Now I must tell you that I have just finished a book which is an unforgettable experience in reading. It sold over 400,000 copies in its first year of publication, with The New York Times calling it “a magnificent novel of America.” The book’s merits were so obvious that Steinbeck was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction in 1940.ĭid you know…? The book also had another, very influential fan: First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. The camps Steinbeck visited, and the people he met there, fueled much of his vision for The Grapes of Wrath.ĭid you know…? The book was an immediate critical and commercial smash. The seven-article series, called “The Harvest Gypsies,” ran in October 1936, and described the desperate conditions migrant farm workers-most of them Dust Bowl refugees-often faced, including hunger, squalid living quarters, and wage exploitation. Applications are due January 27!ĭid you know…? The novel was inspired by Steinbeck’s journalism work, particularly for The San Francisco News, which commissioned him to cover migrant labor camps in California’s Salinas Valley. Below are ten facts about John Steinbeck’s masterpiece, which is available as part of the 2021-2022 National Endowment for the Arts Big Read.

Since the day it was published on April 14, 1939, The Grapes of Wrath has captured the American imagination, pulling back the curtain on a way of life that most of us could scarcely imagine, and showing us the powerful ways that literature can touch society.

The grapes of wrath blurb