The novel that won John Steinbeck the Pulitzer Prize in 1940 endures as his masterpiece. An extraordinary bestseller and simultaneously a book which caused a storm of controversy, it remains one of the most powerful and persuasive novels of human tragedy and endurance ever written. The narrative follows the destiny of the Joads, a family of refugee farmers from Oklahoma - "Okies" - who abandon the dustbowl to head west, for the fields and orchards of California. Travelling in a beat-up truck with all the possessions, they are impelled by hope of work, but the promised land turns out to be a world of labour camps, hungry people and broken dreams, the scene of an elemental conflict between migrant workers and company thugs.