Sinclair Lewis

Birthday: February 7, 1885 in Sauk Centre, Minnesota, USA

Birth Name: Harry Sinclair Lewis

Sinclair Lewis, the first American to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, was a colossus of American letters in the first half of the last century. Arguably, he is the first major "modern" w ...Show More

Sinclair Lewis, the first American to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, was a colossus of American letters in the first half of the last century. Arguably, he is the first major "modern" writer of the 20th century, as there is American literature before "Main Street" (1920) and after that seminal novel, which revolutionized writing in the US. His eminence as a great American writer was eclipsed by Ernest Hemingway, who although more influenced by Sherwood Anderson and Gertrude Stein, owes a debt to Lewis, as do most realists in 20th-century American letters. Hide