How Steinbeck's Cannery Row spoke to me – even in small-town Indonesia
The 1945 novel was one of the first I translated – and it released to me the secrets of authorship in my own language
We can argue over which John Steinbeck novel is the best. Some might pick the The Grapes of Wrath, an epic about the working class, about migration. Others might say Tortilla Flat, about a group of unemployed paisanos living from one small party to another. Or maybeOf Mice and Men, a tragedy about what it means, and how, to be human.
But if I were to pick the most important Steinbeck novel in my life, both as a reader and as a writer, I. Published in 1945, the novel is loosely about a group of unemployed people who live in the sardine-canning district of Monterey, California, and try to organise a party for their friend.Perhaps some other books have affected my life to a degree, but this book changed me in a completely different way.
