The 1936 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to the American playwright Eugene O'Neill (1888–1953) "for the power, honesty and deep-felt emotions of his dramatic works, which embody an original concept of tragedy". He is the second American to become a literature laureate after Sinclair Lewis in 1930 and the only American playwright awarded the prize.
Eugene Gladstone O'Neill (October 16, 1888 – November 27, 1953) was an American playwright. His poetically titled plays were among the first to introduce into the U.S. the drama techniques of realism, earlier associated with Chekhov, Ibsen, and Strindberg. The tragedy Long Day's Journey into Night is often included on lists of the finest American plays in the 20th century, alongside Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire and Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman. He was awarded the 1936 Nobel Prize in Literature. O'Neill is also the only playwright to win four Pulitzer Prizes for Drama.
O'Neill's plays were among the first to include speeches in American English vernacular and involve characters on the fringes of society. They struggle to maintain their hopes and aspirations, ultimately sliding into disillusion and despair. Of his very few comedies, only one is well known (Ah, Wilderness!). Nearly all of his other plays involve some degree of tragedy and personal pessimism.