The famous writer Ernest Hemingway was a very difficult person, and his life was full of travels, in which he sought his inspiration. Sometimes in his books it is difficult to distinguish truth from fiction, but researchers of Hemingway’s biography usually agree that he covertly presented real events in a wrapper from the details he had invented. And how was it really – who knows?
The future writer got his name in honor of his grandfather. Ernest Hemingway’s parents were wealthy people who lived in a 7-room private house in a prestigious area. His father was a successful doctor, and his mother was an opera singer. The matured Hemingway has repeatedly said that he does not like his name because he associates it with the hero of one of the plays of Oscar Wilde, a naive and stupid man. Mother dressed young Ernest Hemingway as a girl, and even cut it for the first time only when he was 6 years old. One day in an interview, Hemingway said he hated his mother. As a child, he was forced to learn to play the cello, although he did not have musical talent.
When Hemingway was 4 years old, his father began to teach him to hunt and fish. This had an impact on the life of the writer – he loved to travel to distant places, far from civilization. Ernest Hemingway had a very warm relationship with his grandfather. When the future writer turned 12 years old, he even gave him a hunting rifle. Hemingway’s father committed suicide by shooting himself with a hunting rifle. As a child, Ernest Hemingway wrote notes and articles for the school newspaper. These were his first publications.
After the outbreak of the First World War, Hemingway wanted to go to the front as a volunteer, but he was rejected by the draft board because of a problem with his left eye. Health problems did not stop the writer, and he enlisted as a volunteer driver at the Red Cross, going to Italy. There he helped to search and rescue the wounded, despite the injuries received, for which he received the Italian medal “For Courage”.
Throughout his life, Ernest Hemingway had been close to death many times. He had been in more than ten accidents and disasters, was wounded twice during a hunt, almost burned down in a forest fire, and in a battle he was wounded by a machine-gun burst and received 273 mine fragments in his body. The Hemingway patella destroyed by a bullet was replaced by an aluminum prosthesis, which made it limp to the end of his life. During the war, Hemingway met Antoine de Saint-Exupery, who was already a famous writer at that time. Once he won the argument for the shortest and most touching story, creating it from 6 words and winning. Since then, short-story contests have been held around the world. Ernest Hemingway adored cats, which he had more than 20. Once he had to shoot his cat downed by a car in order to stop his torment, and he remembered this episode as one of the hardest in his life.
On the fronts of World War II, Hemingway was a war correspondent. He was almost given to the tribunal for violating the Geneva Convention, according to which correspondents have no right to take up arms, which did not prevent the writer from one day opening fire on a German squad with a machine gun. Subsequently, the case was hushed up. The descendants of Snowball, the favorite cat of Hemingway, who had 6 fingers on his paws, now live in his house-museum in the USA. There are more than 40 of them, and most of them also have 6 fingers on their paws. They are recognized as national treasures of the United States. Ernest Hemingway hated to give out autographs, and very few people managed to get them, because of what they were especially highly valued by fans of his work. The writer was terribly afraid to speak in public. Moreover, he has repeatedly stated that he does not believe the sincerity of the praises of readers and critics. During his lifetime, Hemingway became famous for his recklessly brave deeds – he participated in a bullfight, entered the cage with lions, entered the ring with the US boxing champion. He received his Nobel Prize in Literature for the philosophical novel The Old Man and the Sea. Fans of Hemingway around the world affectionately call him “Papa Ham”.
In the 30s of the last century, an impostor was driving around the USA posing as Hemingway. He arranged scandals, signed autographs and billed in the name of the writer. He tried to catch him, but nothing happened to him. The work of Ernest Hemingway was banned in Germany during the reign of Hitler and in Italy during the reign of Mussolini. In 1978, the Soviet astronomer discovered a small planet named after Hemingway. Once a writer tore out a wall and stole a urinal from a favorite bar in which he had been a frequenter for many years. He stated that he had left so much money there that the urinal now belongs to him. The bar owner did not mind.
