Harry Sinclair Lewis was an American novelist, short-story writer, and playwright born in Sauk Centre, Minnesota in 1885. He became the first author from the United States to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1930, recognized for his vigorous and graphic art of description and his ability to create new types of characters with wit and humor. Lewis wrote six major novels that achieved popular success: Main Street (1920), Babbitt (1922), Arrowsmith (1925), Elmer Gantry (1927), Dodsworth (1929), and It Can't Happen Here (1935). These works established him as a significant voice in American literature during the early twentieth century. Lewis died in Rome, Italy on January 10, 1951.