Hemingway changed the sound of English prose with his short, clean sentences and his belief that what is left unsaid can matter most. He called this his 'iceberg theory', the idea that a story's deeper meaning should lie beneath the surface. His experience as an ambulance driver in the First World War, where he was seriously wounded, shaped novels such as A Farewell to Arms. He lived a famously adventurous life of bullfighting, big-game hunting and deep-sea fishing, which fed both his books and his public image. The Old Man and the Sea helped win him the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954.
Key Milestones
1918: Wounded on the Italian front as an ambulance driver
1926: Publishes The Sun Also Rises
1952: Publishes The Old Man and the Sea
1954: Wins the Nobel Prize in Literature
Ernest Miller Hemingway ( HEM-ing-way; July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. Known for an economical, understated style that influenced later 20th-century writers, he has been romanticized for his adventurous lifestyle and outspoken, blunt public image.
