(1902–68), US novelist.; full name John Ernst Steinbeck, Jr. Of Mice and Men (1937) and The Grapes of Wrath (1939) are among his works noted for their sympathetic and realistic portrayal of migrant farm workers and other common folk during the Great Depression; full name John Steinbeck. His later novels include Cannery Row (1945) and East of Eden (1952). Nobel Prize for Literature (1962).