Greatness at a Distance: A Commemorative Survey of the Work of John Steinbeck

Abstract

Abstract:The panorama of John Steinbeck's work, viewed now from the distance of half a century after his death, brings new perspectives into play. Fifty years on from Steinbeck's death, looking back on the range of his great achievement and his even greater range of productive experimental endeavor, we honor him best by collaborative engagement with his material and by forthright critique. Steinbeck died in 1968, just six years after receiving the Nobel Prize for Literature, but looking back across that great divide of social upheaval that followed, his readers will find much more than historical reflection, as important as that is.