ERNEST HEMINGWAY 1899-1961

2nd of 6 children Parents: father – doctor

mother – opera singer

and music teacher Raised in Oak Park, a suburb of

Chicago

In high school, Hemingway wrote for the school newspaper and edited the school literary journal.

After graduation, he worked for 6 months as a newspaper reporter for the Kansas City Star.

In June 1918, Hemingway volunteered to be an ambulance driver for the Red Cross and was assigned to Italy, where he was seriously wounded.

After recovering from his wounds, Hemingway returned home and began to write.

Everything he wrote was rejected by publishers.

After getting married in 1921, he and his wife sailed to Paris; a friend had given him letters of introduction to:

Gertrude Stein, author and art collector,

Sylvia Beach, owner of Shakespeare & Company – the famous Paris bookstore,

Ezra Pound – poet, literary critic, and editor,

and they introduced him to:

F. Scott Fitzgerald,

Sara and Gerald Murphy,

Pablo Picasso,

and James Joyce.

All it then took, was for Gertrude Stein to taunt Hemingway one day, saying, “You are all a Lost Generation.”

The name stuck!

Hemingway’s first successful novel, The Sun Also Rises (1926), is based on his visits to the Fiesta de San Fermin.

Hemingway’s experiences being wounded in World War I on the Italian front led to his writing A Farewell to Arms (1929).

An African safari, with his second wife, Pauline, led to the writing of Green Hills of Africa and “The Snows of Kilimanjaro”

Hemingway reported on the Spanish Civil War (1936-1938), together with his third wife, Martha Gellhorn.

Hemingway’s advice to young writers was, “Always write what you know.” In 1939, what many consider his greatest novel was published: For Whom the Bell Tolls, about the Spanish Civil War.

Hemingway received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954 for Old Man and the Sea.

Hemingway lived in fascinating places: Cuba

Key West, Florida

Sun Valley, Idaho

Hemingway’s writing has been admired around the world and his works have been translated into many languages.

Two weeks before his 61st birthday, Hemingway committed suicide.