Thomas Wolfe of an immense exuberance, organic in its form, kinetic, and drenched with the love of life... I rejoice over Mr. Wolfe." Both in his 1930 Nobel Prize for Literature acceptance speech and original press conference announcement, Sinclair Lewis, the first American to win the Nobel Prize for literature, said of Wolfe, "He may have a chance to be the greatest American writer... In fact I don't see why he should not be one of the greatest world writers." Upon publication of his second novel, "Of Time and the River", most reviewers and the public remained supportive, though some critics found
African-American literature most important African-American writers of the 20th century. Her first novel, "The Bluest Eye", was published in 1970. Among her most famous novels is "Beloved", which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1988. This story describes a slave who found freedom but killed her infant daughter to save her from a life of slavery. Another important novel is "Song of Solomon", a tale about materialism, unrequited love, and brotherhood. Morrison is the first African American to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. In the 1970s novelist and poet Alice Walker wrote a famous essay that brought Zora Neale Hurston