Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway is one of the great 20th-century American writers. His incredible career, and the legend which developed around his impressive personality, was that of a man of action, a devil-may-care adventurer, a brave war correspondent, an amateur boxer, a big-game hunter and deep-sea fisherman, the victim of three car accidents and two plane crashes, a man of four wives and many loves, but above all a brilliant writer of stories and novels.

Hemingway was born in 1899 in Oak Park, Illinois. His father was a doctor who initiated the boy into the outdoor life of hunting, camping and fishing. In high school Hemingway played football and wrote for the school newspaper. In 1917, when the United States entered the First World War, Hemingway left home and schooling to become a young reporter for the Kansas City Star. He wanted to enlist for the war but was rejected because of an eye injury from football. Finally he managed to go to Europe as an ambulance driver for the Red Cross. He joined the Italian army and was seriously wounded. His war experience and adventurous life provided the background for his many short stories and novels. He achieved success with A “Farewell to Arms” – the story of a love affair between an American lieutenant and an English nurse during the First World War.

Hemingway actively supported the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War and wrote another successful novel of war, love and death. It was “For Whom the Bell Tolls”.

During the Second World War Hemingway was a war correspondent first in China and then in Europe. He fought in France, and helped to liberate Paris.

In his later years Hemingway lived mostly in Cuba where his passion for deep-sea fishing provided the background for “The Old Man and the Sea”. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1954.

Hemingway is famous for his lean style, which has been widely imitated but never matched. His heroes show courage in the face of danger, a characteristic which Hemingway admired greatly.

CHEKHOV My favorite writer is Anton Pavlovich Chekhov. In my opinion, he is the greatest Russian dramatist and short-story writer. I’m never tired of reading and rereading his plays and humorous stories.

Chekhov was born in 1860 in Taganrog. In 1879 he went to Moscow, where he studied medicine. Though he practiced little as a doctor in his lifetime, he was prouder of his medical knowledge than of his writing talent. While in college, Chekhov wrote humorous sketches for comic papers to support his family. He collected the best ones into a volume “Motley Stories” in 1886. The book attracted the attention of the publisher of the “Novoje Vremja” – Russia’s largest paper, and Chekhov was asked to contribute stories regularly.

Chekhov, as an established writer, was able to develop a style of his own. Though he never gave up writing comic stories, he began working in a more serious vein. In 1887 “Ivanov” – his first play, established Chekhov as a dramatist. From then on, he concentrated on writing plays, as well as short stories.

Chekhov was seriously ill. He had tuberculosis and knew what it meant. By 1892 his health was so bad that he was afraid to spend another winter in Moscow. He bought a small estate near a village Melikhovo, 50 miles from Moscow. He spent five years there, and those were happy years in spite of the illness. He wrote some of his best stories there, several well-known one-act comedies and two of his serious dramatic masterpieces – “The Seagull” and “Uncle Vаnуа”.

Chekhov’s health went from bad to worse and he had to spend the remaining years in the Crimea and other health spas. “The Cherry Orchard” – his last play, was produced in 1904. Soon after the first night Chekhov died. He was 44.

Chekhov had an immense influence on the 20th-century drama. Besides, several generations of writers both in Russia and abroad studied and imitated Chekhov to perfect their own literary style.