Ernest Hemingway was one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century, and won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954. Born in Illinois, Ernest served as an ambulance driver in World War I, where he was seriously wounded. This experience produced his novel, A Farewell to Arms. During the 1920s, Ernest was a fixture in Paris’ “Lost Generation†expatriate community, where he was a friend and protégée of Gertrude Stein. During this time, The Sun Also Rises, his first novel, was published. Throughout the thirties and forties, Ernest was a journalist in the Spanish Civil War, as well as reporting on the invasion of Normandy and the liberation of Paris. Ernest Hemingway was renowned for his “macho†style, personal as well as literary, elevating such sports as safaris, bull-righting, deep-sea fishing and hard drinking to iconic levels by his participation in and admiration of them. In later years in the United States, Ernest spent a good deal of time in Key West, Florida, with trips to Cuba, and finally ended his days in Ketchum, Idaho by a self-inflicted bullet wound. Married four times, Ernest was the father of three sons, as well as the grandfather of the actresses Margaux and Mariel Hemingway.
