The biography of Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway is thought to be the best modern American writer. He was also the laureate of Nobel Prize in literature. His writing seemed to be very controversial, so often it provoked criticism. To his best novels belong "The Old Man and the Sea" (published in 1952), "The Sun Also Rises" (1926), and "A Farewell to Arms" (1929). He was also the author of many short stories. He led eventful social life and to his friends belonged Gertrude Stein, James Joyce, Ezra Pound, Ford Madrox Ford, F. Scrott Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda.

Hemingway was born in 1899 in Oak Park in the state of Illinois, as the oldest son of Clarence Edmond and Grace Hall. He had five siblings. Hemingway was grown up in the spirit of the First Congregational Church, but later he changed his attitude to Catholicism. The Hemingways used to live in a big house at 493 North Oak Park Avenue. His mother often took young Ernest to the museum in Chicago, and got him piano playing taught. As a teenager he interests in literature. He used to write some articles to the weekly column of his high school paper. What is more, he wrote some stories and poems.

When he graduated in 1917, he worked as a junior reporter. He wrote for the Kansas City Star. His writing was briefly, selectively and precisely. Hemingway seemed to be very talented.

In 1918 Hemingway became a volunteer and worked as a driver for the Red Cross. Then he was sent to Europe and served in Italy during the World War. When he took part in the action at Fosstale di Piave he was wounded in both legs by mortar. He had to spend a lot of weeks in a hospital. There he met a nurse and soon they became friends. Then he fell in love with the nurse, but he was rejected, because she got married to an older man. So Ernest got back to the United States. He was considered as a hero, but his heart was still broken. He began to write and worked as a journalist for the Toronto Star. He was wrote stories to the paper.

Then Hemingway met Hadley Richardson and they got married. Soon he left the States and went to Paris to write stories for the newspapers from different places in Europe. At that time he developed his own writing style, because he wrote many works. Unfortunately, most of them were lost, when his bag was stolen.

In 1923, Robert McAlmon's Contact Publishing Company published some of his stories and some poems. The book was published with the title "Three Stories and Ten Poems". It contained such stories as "My Old Man", "Out of Season" and "Up in Michigan". Then his second book appeared. It was "In Our Time" and was published in New York by Boni & Liveright. There can we find such stories as "Indian Camp", "Soldier's Home" and "Big Two-Hearted River".

It was said that Hemingway made a plagiarism of Sherwood Anderson. But soon Hemingway proved that critics were wrong by writing book entitled "The Torrens of Spring". It was a kind of parody of Sherwood's style, his novels characters and ideas. Unfortunately, after that incident their friendship was broken.

In February 1926, Hemingway met in New York Pauline Pfeiffer, with whom he fell deeply in love. He got back to Paris and decided to live separately with his present wife. He divorced his wife in June that year.

In the meantime Hemingway's next book was published. "The Sun Also Rises" was published in 1926. Then Ernest went to Switzerland to spend some time with Pauline and her sister Virginia. The next year Hemingway got married to her. Pauline got pregnant, but she wanted to give birth to their first son in the States, so they moved to Key West in Florida. Up to this day there is their beautiful house. There Hemingway spent fishing and writing his new book "A Farewell to Arms".

When he finished the book in 1929, his father committed suicide. It exerted a great influence on him. He thought that his father had lack of courage. Hemingway made his own definition of courageous. He said that courageous means "gracing under pressure". Then he took nickname "Papa", which stayed with him until his death.

In 1930s Ernest spent some time travelling. He travelled among others to American West Coast, Africa, Cuba and Florida. He worked as a correspondent during the Spanish Civil War. Then he wrote his extensive essay about a bullfighter called "Death in the Afternoon". In 1933 his next collection of stories appeared "Winner Take Nothing", which was followed by "Green Hills of Africa" and "To Have and Have Not". The last one was considered as his the weakest novels. He created several different books during his stay in Spain. To the most famous of them belongs "For Whom the Bell Tolls", which was published in 1940.

The World War II influenced on Hemingway's life. Then he divorced again his second wife, Pauline Pfeiffer and soon he got married with Martha Gellhorn. Hemingway and his wife moved out to the Cuban village of San Francisco de Paula nearby Havana. Then Ernest went to England and worked as a correspondent. His wife, Martha Hemingway decided to go there with him. In England he met Mary Welsh, who also wrote about a war and he divorced Martha to marry Mary in Havana 1946.

They both settled down in Cuba where Hemingway wrote his novels called "Across the River" and "Into the Trees". They appeared in 1950, but they achieved unfriendly criticism. They were a kind of parody of Hemingway's own style and characteristics. His next novel "The Old Man and the Sea" seemed to be the best of his novels. He won a Pulitzer Prize for this book. Then Hemingway became a laureate of Nobel Prize in the fields of literature. Ernest with his wife Mary Hemingway continued to travel to Africa. They survived the plane crash. After Fidel Castro became in power of Cuba, Hemingway had to move to Ketchum in the state of Idaho, where he were working out stories about life from Paris. Due to his old age he started to have some difficulties in writing.

He became more and more confused, angry and suspicious. He suffered for depression and hypertension. He was treated also in Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. When he came back home to Idaho, he attempted to commit suicide with his favourite shotgun. Then he suffered that he couldn't write, the government agents watched him not to attempt to commit suicide once more, but unfortunately he did this.