Bromfield, << BROM feeld, >> Louis (1896-1956), was an American novelist, gentleman farmer, and political writer. He won the 1927 Pulitzer Prize for fiction for Early Autumn (1926), the third volume of a four-novel series called Escape. The other three were The Green Bay Tree (1924), his first novel; Possession (1925); and A Good Woman (1927). The series concerns the struggles of characters trying to escape the domination of tradition and family. His novels The Rains Came (1937) and Night in Bombay (1940) are set in India.
Bromfield was born on Dec. 27, 1896, in Mansfield, Ohio. He served as an ambulance driver in France during World War I (1914-1918). Bromfield lived in France after the war, becoming one of the most active American writers living in Paris in the 1920’s. He returned to Ohio in 1939 and wrote about his experiences in farming in Pleasant Valley (1945) and other books. He described his conservative economic and political views in A Few Brass Tacks (1946). Bromfield died on March 18, 1956.
