Ernest Miller Heminway (1899-1961)

Ernest Heminway was one of the most important authors of the 20th century, but he started out as just a newspaper reporter after graduating from high school. He never went to college, but gained lots of experience that helped to make him a great writer.

His most unusual job was as a volunteer ambulance driver in Italy during World War I. He also served in the Italian army for a while. He was a correspondent for the Toronto Star, a correspondent in Spain during the Spanish Civil War, and a reporter for the U.S. First Army during World War II.

He liked hunting, fishing and watching bullfighting and wrote about these subjects. He thought an author should really know what he writes about. Heminway's style was simple and almost like a child. He used nouns and verbs instead of adjectives to describe scenes and let the reader imagine the details and feelings. Many other authors copied his style of writing.

Heminway was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1953 and the Nobel Prize for literature in 1954. He wrote many, many stories and books, some that weren't published until after he died. He died when he was 62. People think that he killed himself. There are still over 3,000 pages of his writings that have not been published. If he had lived longer, he could have written more.