Ernest Hemingway biography

was a representant of lost generation and one of the greatest writers that had ever been. His unique mastery of writing influenced the style of an entire generation of writers. That influence spread far beyond the English language, far beyond the borders of the United States. It is an influence that persist today.

May be one of the reasons why is his work so unforgottable is the fact that he mostly describes common people in common situations. His characters are unintellectual and symply ones and they live their real lives. His stories are so truthful with their realistic describtions that everyone have to admire them. Archibald Macleish - the Americal poet once said: "The reason that Hemingway meant so much to us was that his work reflected the real faults and virtues and the esential humanity of the people among whom he lived and that the power and vividness of his writing was such that his work could and did break through barriers of language and fogs of misrepresentation to touch men everywhere". There are also a lot of autobiographycal features in his work and his life - as for me - was more than interesting.

He was reporter, solder, short-story writer, novelist, playwright, deep-see fisherman, and a big game hunter. He was born into the family of a small town doctor in Illinois. He was one of six children. Under the guidance of his father he came to love outdoors, becoming an excellent hunter and fisherman, he was also active in sports. His parents wanted him to become a doctor but after his graduation from high school he began his writting career as a sports reporter for the Cansas City Star.When USA entered the WWl he left his job and tried to join the army. But he was underage so after repeated rejections he was accepted as an ambulance driver with the Red Cross in Italy. Shortly before his l9th birthday he was badly wounded by enemy fire and spent several weeks in a hospital in Milan. This experience would provide material for his future novel A FAREWELL TO ARMS. Hemingway returned to Chicago and then went to Canada to work for the Toronto Star. Then he lived in Europe for six years and he worked there hard to become a writer. He joined the literary circle of expatriate American writers and brought together there by Gertrude Stein and Scott Fitzgerald. He wrote his first three works: THREE SHORT STORIES AND TEN POEMS, IN OUR TIME and a collection of short stories THE TORRENTS OF SPRING.

With the publication of THE SUN ALSO RISES his reputation as a novelist was established. Written in original style quickly influenced other writers. Then he published next collection of short stories MEN WITHOUT WOMEN and after his return to the USA he worked on A FAREWELL TO ARMS.

Hemingway also made many trips including several states in Africa. Drawing on the experiences of these African trips he wrote THE GREEN HILLS OF AFRICA, THE SNOWS OF KILIMANJARO and some others. At the beginning of the Spanish Civil War he went to Spain to gather material

for his work and out these experiences came a play THE FIFTH COLUMN and his longest novel FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS. The novel emphasizes the openess of humanity and the idea that a loss of liberty anywhere means loss of liberty everywhere. This idea is well expressed by the hero, Robert Jordan, as he is dying. Critics have described this novel as a study in "epic courage and compassion" and in it Hemingway reached the peak of his creative skill. WW2 saw Hemingway serving again in the role of war correspondent. After this war he settled in Cuba. During this period of life he talked with many of the fishermen. One story he heard gave him the idea for his short novel THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA. It is a story about Cuban fisherman who, after a run of bad luck, hooks a giant marlin. At the beginning, in one of Hemingway's great describtion, is the old man described through his eyes. Hemingway wrote that everything about him was old except his eyes. They where the same colour as the sea and were cheerful and undefeated. And the story of the old man's struggle with the fish, of his final victory which turns into defeat as sharks attact the catch and reduce it to a skeleton, ends with the words that a man can be destroyed but not defeated. For this work Hemingway received the Pulitzer Prize and in l954 the Swedish Academy awarded him the Nobel Prize for his powerful, style-forming mastery of the art of modern narration, as most recently revealed in The Old Man and the Sea.

Then became the last period of Hemingway's life and I personaly found it as the most important part of his life. He was a figure of heroic proportion. He lived very rugged life and it presented the public with an image of a superman. He started to drink an alcohol, he suffered fits of depression made worse by an increasingly serious stomach ailment. On July 2 l96l Hemingway comitted suicide.

Till today also died almost all his family but noone of them in the natural way.

It is quite fascinating and it is whispered something about the curse.

May be Hemingway died but his techniques, his attitudes, his sensitivity to the spirit of the age and to violence which has played such a role in it made him one of the greatest writers of our period.