Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway was an American novelist, short story writer and journalist, born on 21 July 1899 in Oak Park, Illinois. He worked as a young newspaper reporter and drove an ambulance in Italy during the First World War before settling in Paris in the 1920s, where he became part of a circle of expatriate writers. Later he lived in Key West, Cuba and elsewhere, and he reported on several conflicts, including the Spanish Civil War.

His prose was spare and direct, built on short sentences and understatement, leaving much of the feeling beneath the surface. This style changed the course of twentieth century fiction in English. His work often deals with war, loss, courage and the strain of living with damage. He received the Pulitzer Prize in 1953 and the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954. He died on 2 July 1961.