In 1926 with the publication of The Sun Also Rises, his reputation as an excellent novel writer was established. Later, in 1929 he published A Farewell to Arms
Drawing on the experiences of his numerous African trips, he wrote The Green Hills Of Africa, The Snows of Kilimanjaro and some others.
Out of his experiences in the Spanish Civil War came his longest novel, For Whom the Bell Tolls. The novel emphasizes the idea that a loss of liberty anywhere means the loss of liberty everywhere.
When the war ended, he settled in Cuba. One story he heard from a fisherman gave him the idea for his short novel The Old Man and the Sea. It tells of an old Cuban fisherman, who, after a run of bad luck, hooks a giant marlin, but the sharks attack the catch and reduce it to a skeleton. This novel ends with the words: „A man can be destroyed but not defeated. “
He received a Pulitzer Prize and was awarded the Nobel Prize.
He suffered from serious stomach ailment and, on July the 2nd, 1961, he committed suicide.