by B. Thomas Cooper

Created on: January 13, 2007   Last Updated: May 08, 2007

Ernest Hemingway, American Literary Icon

"In Africa a thing is true at first light, and a lie by noon and you have no more respect for it than for the lovely, perfect weed-fringed lake you see across the sun-baked salt plain. You have walked across that plain in the morning and you know that no such lake is there. But now it is there absolutely true, beautiful and believable."

-Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway, an American literary icon, whose life, was as extraordinary as his writing.
Born in July of 1899, Hemingway is credited by many with having changed the voice of literature in twentieth century America. His passion was ever present, his words revealing. An avid outdoorsman and adventurer, Ernest brought his world into our world, he brought his adventures into our living rooms, and together we shared the pain and loss dominant in his writing.

He wrote many unforgettable novels, including A Farewell to Arms, The Sun Also Rises, For Whom the Bell Tolls, and the fictional memoir, True at First Light, but it was his classic novella, The Old Man and the Sea, which earned him his Pulitzer Prize in 1953, defining Hemingway and his unique style of writing.

Ernest Hemingway always seemed to be searching for something, a search which would lead him to France in his youth and later Africa, where he hunted wild game, finding inspiration for some of his most intriguing stories. While on safari, Hemingway contracted dysentery, which nearly cost him his life. He was seriously mauled lion hunting, survived two plane crashes, and once shot himself in the foot while deep-sea fishing.

Unfortunately, the one killer Hemingway could not overcome was mental illness. Years of alcoholism and a lifetime of self abuse eventually took its toll, ravaging his body and his mind. Mental illness is a lonely road, and one which Ernest was increasingly unable to navigate. On July 2nd, 1961 Hemingway ended his life with a shotgun. At age sixty-one, Ernest Hemingway was gone.

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