Hemingway on War

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Summary

‘The coward dies a thousand deaths, the brave but one.’ – Ernest Hemingway

A unique and captivating collection of Hemingway's writings on war, including extracts from his unparalleled war novels, some classic short stories, an extract from his only full-length play and a range of his war journalism

Ernest Hemingway witnessed many of the seminal conflicts of the twentieth century, as a Red Cross ambulance driver during the First World War and during his twenty-five years as a war correspondent. This edition offers an unparalleled portrayal of the physical and psychological impact of war and its aftermath. It contains extracts from A Farewell to Arms and For Whom the Bell Tolls, some of Hemingway’s very best short stories, his only full-length play, The Fifth Column as well as selections from his wartime journalism. Hemingway on War represents the author's penetrating chronicles of perseverance and defeat, courage and fear, and love and loss in the midst of modern warfare.

‘This collection illuminates many sides of Hemingway's thoughts on conflict’ Publishers Weekly
‘Out of his somber materials - fear, confusion, death - he made great beauty’ New York Times

Reviews

Out of his somber materials - fear, confusion, death - he made great beauty. His short story 'In Another Country' begins with a paragraph exquisite in its spare lyricism and resignation
New York Times

About the author

Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway was born in 1899. His father was a doctor and he was the second of six children. Their home was at Oak Park, a Chicago suburb.

In 1917, Hemingway joined the Kansas City Star as a cub reporter. The following year, he volunteered as an ambulance driver on the Italian front, where he was badly wounded but decorated for his services. He returned to America in 1919, and married in 1921. In 1922, he reported on the Greco-Turkish war before resigning from journalism to devote himself to fiction. He settled in Paris where he renewed his earlier friendships with such fellow-American expatriates as Ezra Pound and Gertrude Stein. Their encouragement and criticism were to play a valuable part in the formation of his style.

Hemingway's first two published works were Three Stories and Ten Poems and In Our Time but it was the satirical novel, The Torrents of Spring, that established his name more widely. His international reputation was firmly secured by his next three books; Fiesta, Men Without Women and A Farewell to Arms.

He was passionately involved with bullfighting, big-game hunting and deep-sea fishing and his writing reflected this. He visited Spain during the Civil War and described his experiences in the bestseller, For Whom the Bell Tolls.

His direct and deceptively simple style of writing spawned generations of imitators but no equals. Recognition of his position in contemporary literature came in 1954 when he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, following the publication of The Old Man and the Sea. He died in 1961.

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