Nelson Algren (1909-1981) won the first National Book Award for fiction in 1950 for The Man With the Golden Arm.
There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one’s own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind.
At the height of the Cold War, the famed writer took Christmas as the occasion to deliver an invective against the "faces of the American Century, full of such an immense irresponsibility toward themselves."