Sinclair Lewis

(HARRY) SINCLAIR LEWIS (1885-1951) was the first American author to receive a Nobel Prize in Literature. Both a novelist and a playwright, he was especially gifted with an ability to write political and social satire, and the characters he created, such as Babbitt, have become synonymous with the value systems they portrayed. Besides Babbitt (1922), some of Lewis's other landmark books include Arrowsmith (1925) and Elmer Gantry (1927 ).