Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Miller Hemingway was an acclaimed American author, born on July 21, 1899, in Oak Park, Illinois. He was the second of six children in a family headed by Dr. Clarence Hemingway and Grace Hemingway. His father, a quiet man, instilled in him a love for the outdoors, particularly fishing and hunting, which would later influence his writings.

Hemingway's adventurous life began early when he joined the Kansas City Star as a cub reporter in 1917. The following year, he volunteered as an ambulance driver on the Italian front during World War I, where he was severely wounded. This experience served as the basis for his novel, A Farewell to Arms. After the war, he married Hadley Richardson in 1921, and in 1922, they moved to Paris, where he worked as a foreign correspondent.

In Paris, Hemingway became part of the expatriate community of the "lost generation" of the 1920s, associating with notable figures like Ezra Pound and Gertrude Stein. Their influence, along with his experiences during the Greco-Turkish war, contributed significantly to the development of his distinctive, economical writing style. His first published works, including Three Stories and Ten Poems and In Our Time, were released during this period.

Hemingway's life was marked by a series of failed marriages. He divorced Hadley Richardson in 1927 and married Pauline Pfeiffer. After their divorce, he married Martha Gellhorn in 1940, but they also divorced. His fourth and last marriage was to Mary Welsh in 1946, which lasted until his death.

Hemingway's literary career was marked by numerous successes, including the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954 for his novel, The Old Man and the Sea. His works, known for their terse literary style, concern courageous and lonely characters, reflecting his adventurous life and experiences. Some of his most famous works include The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, For Whom the Bell Tolls, and The Old Man and the Sea.

Despite his success, Hemingway's life was marked by tragedy. He survived two plane crashes in Africa in 1954, which left him in pain and ill health for the rest of his life. Hemingway committed suicide on July 2, 1961, at his home in Ketchum, Idaho, at the age of 61.