“A man can be destroyed but not defeated.“ – from „The Old Man and The Sea“
Ernest Miller Hemingway was born on the 21st of July, 1899 in Oak Park, Illinois (Oak Park is a suburb of Chicago). Hemingway is one of the most famous American writers in the 20th century. He was war correspondent, journalist, reporter, novelist and even more. In World War I he was a voluntary aid man. After he got seriously injured two times he moved to Paris, where he got to know some important authors and began writing. Publishing some novels and achieving breakthrough with “Fiesta” in 1927 he stayed a reporter in several wars. In World War II he acted as war correspondent. All these war activities left deep impressions in his life. With the novel “The Old Man and The Sea” he won the Pulitzer Prize in 1953 and the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954.
Hemingway had a real hard and sad life. He got one injury after the other one, got problems with alcohol and depressions and could find no home in the world. He also suffered from a neuropathy. All this led to his suicide in 1961. Three weeks before his 62nd birthday on the 2nd of July he took his life in the second attempt with a shotgun.