Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway was a novelist, short story writer, journalist and sportsman, and his fame really came from his ability to combine those. he wrote about fishing; he covered wars and sent dispatches from the front lines to the newspapers he worked for; he was a man of his age, and that included a lot of wars.

He was born in 1899 in Oak Park, Illinois, but wrote from the mid 1920's to the mid 1950's, and won the Nobel Prize in 1954. He was injured (as an ambulance driver) in World War I and wrote about other wars, so some of his writing covers these war experiences. He is famous for living in Paris for an extended period, and this was in the early 1920's; he wrote about it, and became one of the US's most famous expatriates. In later life he lived in Key West, Florida, and Cuba, and it seemed he was able to get some fame just by being associated with them. He was married four times. He is most famous for a very bold, direct writing style which was loved by some and despised or ridiculed by others. Eventually his war experiences and hard drinking caught up with him; he spent his later years in pain, and he killed himself in his last house, which was in Idaho, in 1961.

___ 1. Why was he considered an expatriate?
a. he fought in several wars
b. he lived away from his native country
c. he was a good writer
d. he didn't take sides in the war

___ 2. Which is not true about his writing style?
a. it is complicated and difficult to read
b. some people make fun of it
c. it made him very popular
d. it is very straightforward


___ 3. What does the passage infer about his death?
a. he committed suicide partly because he was in pain
b. he was killed by one of his enemies
c. he died from drinking too much
d. he was in good health when he died