Short answers, pulled from the story.
John Steinbeck was an American writer and novelist who lived from 1902 to 1968 and authored 33 books, including 16 novels. He is widely known for Tortilla Flat, Cannery Row, East of Eden, Of Mice and Men, and The Grapes of Wrath.
John Steinbeck won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1962, for his realistic and imaginative writings combining sympathetic humor and keen social perception. When asked on the day of the announcement whether he deserved it, he replied, "Frankly, no."
The Grapes of Wrath was banned in August 1939 by the Kern County Board of Supervisors from the county's public schools and libraries on claims that it was obscene and misrepresented the county. The ban lasted until January 1941.
Ed Ricketts was a marine biologist whom Steinbeck met in 1930, and who became a close friend and mentor for the following decade. Ricketts ran a biological lab on the Monterey coast and was Steinbeck's model for the character "Doc" in Cannery Row and Sweet Thursday.
John Steinbeck grew up in California's Salinas Valley and was born in Salinas in 1902. Salinas, Monterey, and parts of the San Joaquin Valley became settings for many of his stories, a region now sometimes called "Steinbeck Country."
John Steinbeck died in New York City on the 20th of December 1968, of heart disease and congestive heart failure during the 1968 flu pandemic. He was 66 and had been a lifelong smoker, and an autopsy showed nearly complete occlusion of the main coronary arteries.