Biography of Ernest Hemingway
(1899-1961)
Ernest Miller Hemingway , born in Oak Park, Illinois on July 21st in 1899, was one of the most successful and famous American writers in the 20th century. As the son of a doctor and an opera singer he started his literary career as a writer in a newspaper office in Kansas City at the age of 17.
In 1918, before the United States entered the First World War, he became a volunteer ambulance worker in the Italian army. He was wounded two times when he served at the front.
After his return to the United States he worked as a reporter for Canadian and American newspapers. But he was soon sent back to Europe in order to report from the war between Greece and Turkey and from the Spanish Civil War.
He used his experience of what he had seen in this historical events for his writings.
His breakthrough came in the year 1922 with his short story "Fiesta".
The most famous and outstanding work of him is the short novel " The Old Man and the Sea" which was published in 1952. Itīs about the story of a fishermanīs journey , his long and lonely life, about a fight with a fish and the sea and his victory over the fish.
For this excellent novel he received the literary noble prize in 1954.
His straightforward prose, his dialogues and his preference for understatements are very effective in his short stories. His literally heroes are typical examples of the "lost and poor generation" : They tried to handle their lifes and to live with their destiny.
During his whole life he suffered from depressions and alcohol. In the age of 61 he commited suicide like his father had done before.
Ernest Hemingway, one of the most important writers in the American history died in Ketchum (Idaho) on July 2nd, 1961.
Sandra Schröer