Literary Career
Algren wrote his first story, "So Help Me", in 1933, while he was in Texas working at a gas station. Before returning home, he was caught stealing a typewriter from an abandoned classroom. For this, he spent nearly five months behind bars and faced a possible three additional years in jail. Fortunately for Algren, he was released, but the incident made a deep impression on him. It deepened his identification with outsiders, has-beens, and the general failures who later populated his fictional world.
Algren won the first of his three O. Henry Awards for his short story "The Brother's House" in 1935. The story had appeared in Story Magazine and was reprinted in an anthology of O. Henry Award winners.
Read more about this topic: Nelson Algren
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