/lit/ - Literature

>>22440907
That's a completely incorrect understanding of the situation. Steinbeck was already a published, successful author at the time this letter was written. He just thought it was ridiculous that an anti-Nazi organization wanted him to prove he wasn't a Jew in order to garner support with non-Jews and dispel the rumors that Grapes of Wrath was Jewish propaganda. Regardless, he was absolutely correct.
>Those who wish for one reason or another to believe me Jewish will go on believing it while men of good will and good intelligence won’t care one way or another. I can prove these things of course — but when I shall have to — the American democracy will have disappeared.

Furthermore, let's take a look at another NYTBS author, Ernest Hemingway. How was Cohn portrayed and talked about in The Sun Also Rises? Keep in mind Hemingway's novels were mostly autobiographical.

>He had a hard, Jewish, stubborn streak.

>I saw Cohn coming over across the square.
>“Here he comes.”
>“Well, let him not get superior and Jewish.”

>“No, listen, Jake. Brett’s gone off with men. But they weren’t ever Jews, and they didn’t come and hang about afterward.”

>“That Cohn gets me,” Bill said. “He’s got this Jewish superiority so strong that he thinks the only emotion he’ll get out of the fight will be being bored.”

>“I’m not one of you literary chaps.” Mike stood shakily and leaned against the table. “I’m not clever. But I do know when I’m not wanted. Why don’t you see when you’re not wanted, Cohn? Go away. Go away, for God’s sake. Take that sad Jewish face away. Don’t you think I’m right?”

And of course Nabokov wasn't ever a guy to bow and scrape to get published, so essentially all of what you've just said has gone up in smoke. Faggot.