The Pearl

Steinbeck's other great novella of doomed dreams — George and Lennie's farm is Kino's school for Coyotito, and the ending is equally devastating

A near-contemporary parable of a man who catches the greatest thing from the sea and loses it on the journey back — different cause of loss, same elemental structure

Parable form, allegorical characters, political critique of systems that exploit the powerless — published just two years before The Pearl

Another post-WWII parable using simplified characters to make an argument about human nature — civilization, corruption, and what is lost when innocence collides with power

The full-length version of Steinbeck's economic argument — the Joads face the same rigged systems as Kino, spread across 500 pages instead of 96

The colonial system's destruction of indigenous life narrated from inside the community — what Steinbeck observes from outside, Achebe writes from within