Join us in the Rotunda at John Jermain Library for a talk by special guest, Steinbeck scholar, Don Coers on John’s World War II novel, The Moon is Down discussing the relevance of this powerful resistance story today.
This is part of Canio’s series, Steinbeck In Search of America.
Don Coers is professor of English at Sam Houston State University in Texas. He is author of John Steinbeck as Propagandist: “The Moon Is Down” Goes to War and After The Grapes of Wrath: Essays on John Steinbeck.
The Moon is Down tells the story of a military occupation in a small town by an unnamed nation at war with England.
Written with the purpose of motivating resistance movements in occupied countries, the book has appeared in at least 92 editions across the world.
A French language translation of the book was published illegally in Nazi-occupied France by a French Resistance publishing house. Numerous other editions were also secretly published across all of occupied Europe, including Norwegian, Danish, Dutch, and Italian versions (as well as a Swedish version); it was the best known work of U.S. literature in the Soviet Union during the war.
