Sinclair Lewis Refused a Different Prize

In “Around The Town” on Nov. 11 (“Where Everybody Knows It All--And Your Name Too”) Beverly Beyette writes that American author Sinclair Lewis refused the Nobel Prize for literature.

It was the Pulitzer Prize in 1926 he refused (for “Arrowsmith”). In 1930, he received the Nobel Prize, the first American writer to receive the honor.

Nobel Prize winners in literature who declined the honor were Jean Paul Sartre in 1964 and Boris Pasternak in 1958.

JOHN S. JENSEN

Downey

Editor’s note: The Soviet government forced Pasternak to decline the Nobel Prize.