Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway was married four times. His first wife was Elizabeth Hadley Richardson who he wed in 1921. The couple had one son. Hemingway became involved in an affair with Pauline Pfeiffer during this marriage. When his wife came to learn of it, she divorced him.

He married Pauline Pfeiffer in 1927 soon after his divorce. They had two sons. Hemingway was not faithful to Pauline either and developed a relationship with Martha Gellhorn which led to his divorce from Pauline in 1940.

Shortly after his second divorce, he tied the knot for the third time with Martha Gellhorn. A successful journalist in her own right, she resented being referred to as Hemingway’s wife. Over the course of this marriage, she started an affair with U.S. paratrooper Major General James M. Gavin, and divorced Hemingway in 1945.

Ernest Miller Hemingway was born on July 21, 1899, in Oak Park, Illinois. His father, Clarence Edmonds Hemingway, was a physician, and his mother, Grace Hall-Hemingway, was a musician. Both his parents were greatly respected in their conservative community.

He had an interesting childhood as his father taught him to hunt, fish, and camp in the woods and lakes of Northern Michigan. His mother’s insistence that he receive music lessons however irritated the young boy.

He attended the Oak Park and River Forest High School from 1913 to 1917. He excelled in English and actively contributed for his school newspaper, ‘Trapeze and Tabula’. He also participated in a variety of sports like boxing, track and field, water polo, and football.

His novel ‘A Farewell to Arms’, set during the Italian campaign of World War I, is considered to be one of his first major critically acclaimed success. The book which revolves around a love affair between the expatriate American Henry and Catherine Barkley against the backdrop of the World War I became his first best-seller.

’For Whom the Bell Tolls’ is another one of his best known works. The novel tells the story of a young American who is attached to a republican guerrilla unit during the Spanish Civil War. Death is a primary theme of the novel.

His novel, ‘The Old Man and the Sea’ was the last major work of fiction to be produced by Hemingway and published in his lifetime. It is also one of his most famous works. The story revolves around an aging fisherman who manages to catch a huge fish but is unable to enjoy his success as his catch is eaten up by the sharks.

Ernest Hemingway was awarded a Bronze Star for his bravery during World War II in 1947.

He won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1953 for the novel ‘The Old Man and the Sea’.

In 1954, Hemingway was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature 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”.