Which novel by John Steinbeck won the Pulitzer Prize in 1940?

John Steinbeck's novel The Grapes of Wrath won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1940. Published by Viking Press in April 1939, the novel follows the Joad family as economic hardship and environmental disaster force them from Oklahoma toward California during the Great Depression. Alongside the family's story, Steinbeck includes intercalary chapters that broaden the focus to migration, poverty, labor exploitation, and social injustice.

The book was shaped by the Dust Bowl and the mass displacement of farming families in the 1930s. Its title comes from “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” whose imagery echoes the novel's anger at suffering and exploitation. Steinbeck researched migrant conditions in California, and the novel's realistic depiction of hunger, low wages, crowded camps, and organizing made it both influential and controversial.

The Pulitzer jury unanimously recommended the book, and the 1940 award recognized it as the year's outstanding American novel. It is sometimes confused with Steinbeck's other major works: Of Mice and Men was published in 1937, Cannery Row in 1945, and East of Eden in 1952. The Grapes of Wrath was later adapted into a celebrated 1940 film directed by John Ford.