"I believe there is one story in the world, and only one, that has inspired and .
Humans are caught - in their lives, in their thoughts, in their hungers and .
ambitions, in their greediness and cruelty, and in their kindness and generosity too - in a .
net of good and evil.
There is no other story. A man will have only one question left at the end of is life: .
was it good or was it evil? And all novels, all poetry, are built on the never ending .
contest in ourselves between good and evil.".
John Steinbeck explores these ideas in his book East of Eden. Written in 1952, the .
story itself is part fiction and part personal history. It asks if people are born good or evil, .
or can they choose what kind of people they are. The story spans thirty-six years and .
nearly three generations of two American families living in California from 1862 and .
1918. It's story about jealousy and sibling rivalry, wealth and poverty, revenge and .
murder. .
John Steinbeck was born in Salinas, California in 1902. He grew up in the area .
where much of the story takes place, the Salinas Valley. Throughout his life, he did a .
number of different jobs, including work on ranches, and he learned about the lives of .
farmers during that time. After that, he moved to New York to begin a career as a writer. .
Initially, he was not successful. He returned to California and worked on his first novel, .
The Cup of Gold in 1929. His first successful book was Tortilla Flat written in 1935. It .
was a collection of humorous short stories. In Dubious Battle was about a farm workers" .
strike in California. Two years later, one of his more successful and popular books, Of .
Mice and Men, was written. It was followed by The Long Valley, another collection of .
short stories, in 1938. The Grapes of Wrath, written in 1939, was perhaps Steinbeck's .
most famous novel, for which he won the Pulitzer Prize.
During the Second World War, he wrote for the New York Herald Tribune.
