Ernest Hemingway
Facts
Photo from the Nobel Foundation archive.
Ernest Miller Hemingway
The Nobel Prize in Literature 1954
Born: 21 July 1899, Oak Park, IL, USA
Died: 2 July 1961, Ketchum, ID, USA
Residence at the time of the award: USA
Prize motivation: “for his mastery of the art of narrative, most recently demonstrated in The Old Man and the Sea, and for the influence that he has exerted on contemporary style”
Language: English
Prize share: 1/1
Life
Ernest Hemingway was born in Oak Park, Illinois. When he was 17, he began his career as a writer at a newspaper office in Kansas City. After the United States entered World War I, he joined a volunteer ambulance unit in the Italian army. After his return to the US, he became a reporter for American newspapers and was soon sent back to Europe. He covered many historic events such as the Spanish Civil War and World War II, including the liberation of Paris. In 1954, he survived two airplane accidents that caused severe pain for the rest of his life.
Work
Between 1925 and 1929, Hemingway wrote some of his major works, such as In Our Time (1924), The Sun Also Rises (1926), and A Farewell to Arms (1929). His succinct and lucid prose had a powerful influence on 20th century fiction. Hemingway’s works explore love, war, wilderness, and loss. The theme of emasculation is also prevalent in his works, most notably in The Sun Also Rises. In 1952, he published The Old Man and the Sea, a work that was praised by the Swedish Academy when awarding the Nobel Prize.
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