Biographie de Sinclair Lewis
Sinclair Lewis was born in 1885 in a village in Minnesota and spent his childhood in the Midwest. He attended Yale University, where he was editor of the literary magazine, and subsequently worked as a reporter and in editorial positions at various newspapers, magazines and publishing houses from the East Coast to California. In 1920, he had a major breakthrough with the bestseller Main Street which was followed by Babbitt (1922) and several other successful novels satirizing middle-class American life.
Lewis was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for Arrowsmith (1925), but he refused to accept the honour, saying the prize was meant to go to a novel that celebrated the wholesomeness of American life, something his books did not do. He did accept, however, when in 1930 he became the first American writer to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature. It Can't Happen Here was written at great speed in the summer of 1935, in response to the growing fascist threats Lewis saw all around, both at home and abroad.
The novel, praised in the New Yorker as one of the most important books ever produced in this country', became a national bestseller and was also made into a popular play. Lewis died in Rome in 1951, having continued to write up to his death.