Steinbeck died in 1968 at 66, and Moberg, who was born in 1898, committed suicide in 1973.

“In one of his letters home, Moberg mentions having met Steinbeck,” notes Swedish scholar Jens Liljestrand, who speculates that the meeting must have been “brief and superficial,” given the barriers of language, age, and demeanor that separated them.īoth men did some of their best writing on California’s Monterey Peninsula, though at different times, and may have met there in the late 1940s. Both men did some of their best writing on California’s Monterey Peninsula, though at different times, and may have met there in the late 1940s. Both wrote novelistic sagas of human migration that became major movies-Steinbeck’s 1930s protest novel The Grapes of Wrath and The Emigrants, the series of four novels in Swedish written by Moberg and made into a pair of feature films starring Liv Ullmann and Max von Sydow in the 1970s. Sensitive to the humble, powerless, and downtrodden, both writers documented social injustice with abiding sympathy and convincing clarity in works of fiction that became classics.

John Steinbeck and Vilhelm Moberg had more in common than literary greatness. Steve Hauk, the author of Steinbeck: The Untold Stories, contributed to this account of an overlooked aspect of John Steinbeck’s life, writing, and reputation as a 20th century American internationalist: his association with the Swedish writer Vilhelm Moberg, with whom he shared political sympathies, geographical proximity, and personal traits, including depression.-Ed.

The emigrants by vilhelm moberg