Sinclair Lewis

American, 1885–1951

Sinclair Lewis (1885–1951) was an American novelist and playwright who became the first American to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1930. His satirical novels — including Main Street, Babbitt, Arrowsmith, and Elmer Gantry — skewered the conformity, materialism, and hypocrisy of American middle-class life. Lewis's sharp social criticism and memorable character portraits made him one of the most important American writers of the early twentieth century.