Sinclair Lewis

Sinclair Lewis (English: Sinclair Lewis, February 7, 1885 - January 10, 1951) was an American novelist, short story writer, and playwright. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1930 "for his powerful, personal, and moving narrative art, and his talent for creating new styles with wit and humor." He was the first American to win the award. His works profoundly and critically describe American society and capitalist values. His representative works include "The Country of Freedom" (1919), "Main Street" (1920) and "Babbitt" (1922). He was born into a family of rural doctors in Minnesota. After graduating from Yale University in 1908, he first worked as a reporter and later as an editor at two publishing companies in New York. In 1914, he published his first novel "Our Mr. Lane". In 1920, he published the most influential novel "The Street". He spent the next ten years traveling throughout the United States and Europe while creating. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1927 but refused to accept it. In 1930, he became the first American to win the Nobel Prize in Literature for his "talent in describing vigor, lifelikeness, and creating new characters with wit and humor." Most of the works show the decadence, corruption, and shameless meanness of business owners. His major works include "Babbitt", "Aros Smith", "Alme Gantry", "Wouldn't Happen Here", "A Dream of Kings and Suns", etc. He later died in Rome, Italy. "Lewis's creative attitude throughout his life was very rigorous. Every time he wrote a book, he carefully summarized his life experiences, interviewed various characters, investigated the town's history on the spot, and read hundreds of books and notes related to the creative theme. Because of this, Lewis's "Main Street" and "Bobbitt" have become encyclopedias of social life in American cities and towns. In addition, Lewis is a master of the art of satire. In each of his novels, Lewis uses dialect, irony, contrast, exaggeration, metaphor, joke, aphorism, vitriol and other techniques to convey the characters' behavior in a natural, appropriate and humorous way, making people unable to help but think deeply." (Meng Xianzhongyu)