Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Miller Hemingway (1899-1961) was an American novelist and journalist who authored fifteen books.

He moved to Paris in the 1920s. “The only way they could have an interesting life is by being poor in Paris, rather than poor in the US.” Yale English professor Wai Chee Dimock on the best books on Hemingway in Paris. “There were all these different writers in Paris, like [James] Joyce and [Ezra] Pound, so they were aware of what other people were doing. That was a tremendous spur, especially to Hemingway. There was also experimentation in the visual arts.”

“Hemingway basically changed the nature of the American story; although his macho side has caused him to fall out of vogue, I think his novels will actually prove to last a long, long time – even though he may have created stereotypes that people treat with some scorn.” Scott Turow on the best legal novels.

“Hemingway obviously thought war was a great thing. Outside war, he liked hunting, fishing and shooting. Killing things was his thing and a war was a natural environment for him. That’s not to say that he thinks that war is an unmitigated good. For Whom the Bell Tolls and A Farewell to Arms show the human cost of war as well, and the political cost of war, and the futility of it.” Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford Kate McLoughlin on the best war writing.

Hemingway won a Pulitzer in 1953 and the Nobel Prize for Literature the following year.

As a great of 20th-century American literature, Hemingway has been recommended many times on Five Books.

Books by Ernest Hemingway

When I read Ernest Hemingway’s [short story] “Big Two-Hearted River”, I felt I was learning not only about Nick Adams’s interior but also about fly fishing.

Jim Shepard on the best Short Stories

For Whom the Bell Tolls and A Farewell to Arms show the human cost of war as well, and the political cost of war, and the futility of it.

The Best War Writing recommended by Kate McLoughlin

Interviews where books by Ernest Hemingway were recommended

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