Who refused Pulitzer Prize in 1926 for novel Arrowsmith?

Sinclair Lewis refused to accept the 1926 Pulitzer Prize for his novel, Arrowsmith, because he believed the Pulitzer should be awarded for works that "celebrate American wholesomeness," while Lewis' books were negative and critical. He resisted the idea of being constrained by a form of social contract that might seek to dilute his work.

Lewis wrote to the Pulitzer Prize Board: "Every compulsion is put upon writers to become safe, polite, obedient, and sterile. In protest, I declined election to the National Institute of Arts and Letters some years ago, and now I must decline the Pulitzer Prize."

Ironically, the protagonist of the book, Dr. Martin Arrowsmith, also struggled with the conflict between idealism and commercialism. After declining the Pulitzer Prize, Lewis asked his agent to try to "pull strings" for a Nobel Prize in Literature, which he subsequently won in 1930 for "for his vigorous and graphic art of description and his ability to create, with wit and humour, new types of characters."