Sinclair Lewis

American novelist, playwright, and short story writer (1885–1951)

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About

Sinclair Lewis, born in Sauk Centre, Minnesota, was the first American to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature (1930). A Yale graduate, he achieved success with Main Street (1920), a satire of small-town Midwestern life. His subsequent novels, Babbitt (1922), Arrowsmith (1925), Elmer Gantry (1927), and Dodsworth (1929), criticized American society. He declined the Pulitzer Prize for Arrowsmith (1926), deeming the criteria too conservative. His work includes 22 novels, over 70 short stories, and several plays. He died in Rome in 1951.

* 1885-02-07 — † 1951-01-10

Major works

Main Street (1920)novel
Babbitt (1922)novel
Arrowsmith (1925)novel
Elmer Gantry (1927)novel
It Can't Happen Here (1935)novel

Key milestones

1930First American to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature.
1926Declines the Pulitzer Prize for Arrowsmith.
1920Publication of Main Street, his first major success.

Themes

Social satireCritique of the American middle claConformismProvincial lifeMaterialism

Sources: nobelprize.org · britannica.com

“It is impossible to give a clear account of the world in words, but it is possible to give a clear account of words in words.”

— Sinclair LewisTheme · Literature

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“When you are in the middle of a story it isn't a story at all, but only a confusion; a dark roaring, a blindness, a wreckage of shattered glass and splintered wood; like a house in a whirlwind, or else a boat crushed by the icebergs or swept over the rapids.”

— Sinclair LewisTheme · Literature

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“He who has seen one cathedral ten times has seen something; he who has seen ten cathedrals once has seen but little; and he who has spent half an hour in each of a hundred cathedrals has seen nothing at all.”

— Sinclair LewisTheme · Wisdom

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