author of Sister Carrie, a novel that traced the fate of a small-town girl drawn into brutal urban worlds

The correct answer is:

Theodore Dreiser

Explanation:

Theodore Dreiser was a novelist and journalist who was born in Indiana in 1871. He mainly focussed his literary work in naturalism publishing one of his most famous works Sister Carrie in 1900, which was a really controversial novel for the epoch since it talks explicitly about the sexual adventures of Carrie who constructs her life around her sexual affairs and becomes successful in life also for the same reason. The novel shows how through a promiscuous life Carrie goes from a small town to then be part of the biggest Broadway theaters billboards. Once the novel was published, it was hardly criticized because of its mundane content and explicitness, however, some years later Dreiser continued with his controversial literature and nowadays the novel is recognized as a really important piece of art.