Sanora Babb

Sanora Louise Babb (April 21, 1907 – December 31, 2005) was an American novelist, poet, and literary editor known for her realistic portrayal of life during the Great Depression Era.

Over the span of her career, she published eight books including novels, a memoir, short story collections, and a volume of poetry. After her death, she was featured in the Ken Burns 2012 documentary ''The Dust Bowl''.

Her best known work, ''Whose Names Are Unknown'' (2004), received much critical acclaim and was a finalist for the 2005 Spur Award for the Best Western Novel and the 2005 PEN Center USA Literary Award for fiction. The novel had been written decades prior – John Steinbeck's 1939 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel "The Grapes of Wrath" had been based on Babb's field notes from interviews of migrant camp families compiled for her own book. Her boss, camp manager Tom Collins, had asked her to provide a copy of her notes to Steinbeck, who dedicated his novel to his wife and to Collins, "who lived it," with no attribution to Babb, whose own work was submitted to her publisher shortly thereafter.

Her short stories and poems have also won recognition. Her short stories "Wildflower" and "Santa Ana" were included in ''The Best American Short Stories'' (1950 and 1960 editions) edited by Martha Foley. Her poetry collection, ''Told in the Seed'', won the Borestone Mountain Poetry Award in 1967 and her poem "Captive" from the ''Mitre Press Anthology'', London won the Gold Medal Award in 1932. Babb's writing focuses on the themes of marginalized people and their connection to nature during the Great Depression. Her other works include ''The Lost Traveler'' (1958), ''An Owl on Every Post'' (1970), ''The Dark Earth and Other Stories'' (1987), ''Cry of Tinamou'' (1997), ''Told in the Seed'' (1998), ''On the Dirty Plate Trail'' (2007), and ''The Dark Earth and Selected Prose from the Great Depression'' (2021). Provided by Wikipedia