John Steinbeck with "Tortilla Flat" (1935), a novel set in post-war Monterey, California, that won the California Commonwealth Club's Gold Medal. It portrays the adventures of a group of classless and usually homeless young men in Monterey after World War I, just before U.S. prohibition. They are portrayed in ironic comparison to mythic knights on a quest and reject nearly all the standard mores of American society in enjoyment of a dissolute life devoted to wine, lust, camaraderie and petty theft. In presenting the 1962 Nobel Prize to Steinbeck, the Swedish Academy cited "spicy and comic tales about a gang of "paisanos",
Muriel Steinbeck Muriel Steinbeck Muriel Myee Steinbeck (21 July 1913 – 20 July 1982) was an Australian actress who worked extensively in radio, theatre, television and film. She is best known for her performance as the wife of Sir Charles Kingsford Smith in "Smithy" (1946) and for playing the lead role in "Autumn Affair" (1958–59), Australia's first television serial. The youngest of the four children of William Martin Steinbeck and Lily Clarissa (née Batten), Muriel Steinbeck was born in Broken Hill, New South Wales, where her father was working as a headmaster. Her family left Broken Hill when Muriel was five. She