John Steinbeck was an American author and Nobel Prize winner best known for his novels The Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men. He was born in Salinas, California in 1902 and grew up in a rural area surrounded by farms and orchards. He attended Stanford University but dropped out after two years to pursue writing. His works often focused on the struggles of the working class, particularly migrant workers during the Great Depression. Steinbeck wrote more than twenty-five books, including seven non-fiction works. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962 for his realistic portrayals of life during difficult times. Steinbeck died in 1968 at the age of 66.