English Literatur

Ernest Hemingway Biography

In January 1954, Hemingway was off for another of his many African safaris and was reported dead after two airplane crashes in two days. He survived, though, despite severe internal and spinal injuries and a concussion. When he read newspaper obituary notices about his death, he noted with great pleasure that they were favorable. That same year, Hemingway received the Swedish Academy's Nobel Prize in literature, "for his powerful style forming mastery of the art of modern narration, as most recently evidenced in The Old Man and the Sea."


During the next few years, Hemingway was not happy, and during 1961, he was periodically plagued by high blood pressure and clinical depression. He received shock therapy during two long confinements at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, but most of the prescribed treatment for his depression was of little value. Hemingway died July 2, 1961, at his home, the result of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

It seems as if there were always two Hemingways. One was the adventurer — the grinning, bearded "Papa" of the news photographs; the other was the skillful, sensitive author Hemingway, who patiently wrote, rewrote, and edited his work.

Certainly each of the short stories discussed in this volume represents a finished, polished "gem" — Hemingway's own word for his short stories. No word is superfluous, and no more words are needed. Along with such well-known short-story writers as William Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor, and John Steinbeck, Hemingway is considered by literary critics to be one of the world's finest.

Label: Ernest Hemingway