John Roderigo Dos Passos (/dɵsˈpæsɵs/; January 14, 1896 –September 28, 1970) was a radical American novelist and artist active inthe first half of the twentieth century. He was born in Chicago, Illinois andhe went on to Harvard College, graduating in 1916. He was well traveled,visiting Europe and the Middle East, where he learned about literature,art, and architecture.
During World War I he was a member of theAmerican Volunteer Motor Ambulance Corps in Paris and Italy, laterjoining the U.S. Army Medical Corps.
In 1920 he had his first novel published, One Man's Initiation: 1917, andin 1925 his Manhattan Transfer, became a commercial success.
In 1928, he went to Russia to study socialism, and later became a leading participator in the April 1935 First Americans Writers Congress sponsored by the Communist-leaning League of American Writers. He was in Spain in 1937 during the Spanish Civil War, when the murder of good friend José Robles soured his attitude toward communism and severed his relationship with fellow writer Ernest Hemingway.
He is best known for his critically praised U.S.A. trilogy which consisted of the novels The 42nd Parallel (1930), 1919 (1932), and The Big Money(1936). In 1998, the Modern Library ranked the U.S.A. Trilogy 23rd onits list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century.
By the 1950s his political views had changed dramatically, and in the1960s, he actively campaigned for presidential candidates Barry Goldwater and Richard M. Nixon.
An artist as well as a novelist, Dos Passos created cover art for hisbooks, was influenced by the modernist movements in 1920s Paris, and continued to paint throughout his lifetime. He died in 1970.
