Great Depression writing, as authors have sought to evaluate an era that caused both financial and emotional trauma. Perhaps the most noteworthy and famous novel written on the subject is "The Grapes of Wrath", published in 1939 and written by John Steinbeck, who was awarded both the Nobel Prize for literature and the Pulitzer Prize for the work. The novel focuses on a poor family of sharecroppers who are forced from their home as drought, economic hardship, and changes in the agricultural industry occur during the Great Depression. Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men" is another important novella about a journey during the
A Death in the Family aired in 2002. Samuel Barber wrote "Knoxville: Summer of 1915" (1947, revised 1950) on commission from the American soprano Eleanor Steber, who had asked for a work for soprano with orchestra. William Mayer wrote an opera based on the novel; it premiered in 1983. A Death in the Family A Death in the Family is an autobiographical novel by author James Agee, set in Knoxville, Tennessee. He began writing it in 1948, but it was not quite complete when he died in 1955 (with reputedly many portions having been written in the home of his friend Frances Wickes). It was