Ernest Hemingway

State: Illinois

Ernest Miller Hemingway (1899–1961) was an American novelist, short story writer, and journalist whose lean, understated prose helped define 20th-century literature. Born in Oak Park, Illinois, Hemingway began his career as a reporter before serving as an ambulance driver in World War I—an experience that deeply shaped his worldview and writing. His first major work, The Sun Also Rises, captured the disillusionment of the postwar “Lost Generation.” He followed with celebrated novels such as A Farewell to Arms, For Whom the Bell Tolls, and The Old Man and the Sea, the latter earning him the Pulitzer Prize in 1953. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954. Hemingway was known not only for his literary achievements but also for his adventurous life—spanning bullfights in Spain, safaris in Africa, and deep-sea fishing in Key West and Cuba. Despite personal struggles and declining health, his influence on fiction remains profound, and he is widely regarded as one of the greatest American writers of all time.

Genres: Adventure, Contemporary, Historical Fiction, Memoir, Nonfiction, Romance

Audiences: Adult