Which writer became the first American Nobel laureate in Literature in 1930?

Sinclair Lewis became the first American Nobel laureate in Literature in 1930.

Born in Sauk Centre, Minnesota, in 1885, Lewis became known for sharply observant novels about American life. Main Street (1920) challenged small-town complacency, while Babbitt (1922) satirized conformity, consumerism, and boosterism in the business class. These books helped establish him as an internationally important American novelist.

The Swedish Academy praised Lewis for his “vigorous and graphic art of description” and his ability to create new character types. His selection was significant because the United States had long been viewed as culturally provincial in Europe. Lewis used his Nobel lecture, “The American Fear of Literature,” to criticize both American literary institutions and the country’s resistance to uncomfortable social criticism.

The answer is sometimes confused with other American winners. Pearl S. Buck won in 1938, Eugene O’Neill in 1936, and William Faulkner in 1949. Lewis, however, was the first American writer to receive the Literature prize.