The Grapes of Wrath

John Steinbeck published The Grapes of Wrath in 1939, and it immediately became one of the most talked-about novels in American history. The book tells the story of the JOAD family, Oklahoma tenant farmers who are forced off their land during the GREAT DEPRESSION. Massive dust storms had already destroyed crops across the Great Plains, turning the region into what people called the DUST BOWL. Steinbeck spent time traveling with migrant workers to understand their lives before he wrote a single word. His RESEARCH gave the novel a raw, documentary-like honesty that readers found impossible to ignore. The book won the PULITZER Prize in 1940, cementing Steinbeck's place in the American literary canon.