Who is John Steinbeck from Travels with Charley: In Search of America and what is their importance?

Steinbeck was already a world renowned writer when he decided to take this journey. In the fall of 1960 when John Steinbeck is 58 years old, he decides that if he is going to take a cross-country tour of the United States, he had better do it now before he grows too old to do it at all.