On this day 123 years ago, February 27, 1902 (January 20, 1902 in the lunar calendar), was the birthday of the American novelist Steinbeck. Steinbeck, like Steinbeck, was born on February 27, 1902, to a family of flour mill owners in Celinas Township, Monterey County, California. He was exposed to European classical literature from an early age. Between 1920 and 1925, he took courses in English Literature and Marine Biology at Stanford University, where he earned his living by engaging in various manual labor. He began writing during his college studies, publishing his first novel, The Golden Cup, in 1929. Two subsequent novels, Pastures of Heaven (1932) and To a Nameless God (1933), were published, both of which received little attention. In 1935, The Land of Totia was published. Immediately welcomed by literary and artistic critics and a wide range of readers. 1936 published "The Battle of Undecided Victory", published in 1937 "Rat and Man" adapted by the author into a play staged in New York, won the play critic award. 1938 published "Long Valley" short story collection. "The Grapes of Wrath" (1939) is the author's representative work and an epic during the Great Depression of the 1930s in the United States. 1940 won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. "World War II" before and after published "Moonfall" (1942), "Cannery Street" (1944), "Wayward Bus" (1947), "Pearl" (1947) and so on. Steinbeck's main works in the later period are two novels "East of Eden" (1952) and "Our Winter of Discontent" (1961). Steinbeck was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1962. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1964. He died of a heart attack in New York on December 20, 1968.