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
Nobel Prize in Literature never won; as biographer Gordon Bowker wrote, "That prize was just out of Joyce's reach." The academy considered Czech writer Karel Čapek's "War with the Newts" too offensive to the German government. He also declined to suggest some noncontroversial publication that could be cited as an example of his work, stating "Thank you for the good will, but I have already written my doctoral dissertation". He was thus denied the prize. Spanish playwright Àngel Guimerà, who wrote in the Catalan language was nominated twenty-three times for the Nobel Prize, though he never won, due to controversy about the political significance