123 years after the birth of the novelist Ernest Hemingway | Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954

This Thursday, July 21, is the 123 years since the birth of the writer and journalist Ernest Hemingwayone of the most recognized American writers in history, whose adventurous life full of excesses influenced his literary production, which earned him the Nobel Prize in 1954.

Hailed as one of the most emblematic figures of the “Lost Generation”, Hemingway was the first chronicler sent in 1914 to cover the First World War: mutilated bodies and acts of cowardice forged his spirit and established the direction of his literary work.

In 1921, he married Hadley Richardson and traveled to Paris. In search of his best literature, he divided his days between writing chronicles of social life with which he earned a living and correcting his book “Fiesta”, in which he describes his time in Pamplona (Spain) and the indelible impression that bullfights left on him.

beginnings in literature

Hemingway’s beginnings in literature came with the appearance of “A Farewell to Arms” in 1929, inspired by memories of the war, where he develops a kind of alter ego through the protagonist Frederic Henry.

Those early years of the 1930s marked his dazzlement by the African territory that was correlated in stories such as “The Green Hills of Africa”, “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” and “The Short and Happy Life of Francis Macomber”.

“For whom the Bell Tolls”

After the Spanish Civil War broke out, in 1937 Hemingway agreed to work as a correspondent for the North American Newspaper Alliance. During his stay in Spain, he was accompanied by an old friend, the journalist and also a writer Martha Gellhornwhom he would marry in 1940.

The experience of fighting fascism marked his writing with fire and gave rise to one of his most famous books: “For whom the Bell Tolls”which focuses on a group of republican guerrillas who resist the Falangist advance.

In 1954, he won 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 it has exerted on contemporary style.”

excesses

His fondness for fishing also motivated his best pages, such as “The Old Man and the Sea”, inspired by his visits to the humble fishing village of Cojimar (Cuba) and his journeys in search of swordfish.

Hemingway, in turn, cultivated another passion that frequently led to excesses, such as the nights of alcohol in “La Bodeguita del medio” or “El floridita”, in Havana, where the dissatisfaction caused by not being able to write as in the best times.

Despite following your doctor’s advice, shortly after stopping drinking he finally relapsedwhich led him to take medication to alleviate the hypertension he suffered from, in addition to liver complications and atherosclerosis. In addition to this situation, he suffered from a hereditary illness: hemochromatosisdisease that causes an excess of iron in the body.

Death

In 1960, the novelist left Cuba to settle in Idaho, United States, close to his childhood affections and the scenes of his first adventures, where he is currently Ernest Hemingway Museum.

Although many classify his death as a mystery and there are those who think that it was an accident, everything indicates that it was a suicide.

That July 2, 1961, he sat in a living room of his house and dressed in a robe that he liked the most and which he had nicknamed “the emperor’s robe”, he took his life from a shot with his shotgun.

keep reading