John Ernst Steinbeck, Jr. (1902 – 1968) American author of twenty-seven books, including sixteen novels, six non-fiction books, and five collections of short stories.

He is widely known for the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Grapes of Wrath (1939), East of Eden (1952) and the novella Of Mice and Men (1937). Steinbeck received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962 "for his realistic and imaginative writings, combining as they do sympathetic humour and keen social perception".

Source: Wikipedia