Tag: ernest hemingway

Ernest Hemingway: “There is Nothing Else Than Now”

Photographers Unknown, Ten Images from the Black and White Collection

“There is nothing else than now. There is neither yesterday, certainly, nor is there any tomorrow. How old must you be before you know that? There is only now, and if now is only two days, then two days is your life and everything in it will be in proportion. This is how you live a life in two days. And if you stop complaining and asking for what you never will get, you will have a good life. A good life is not measured by any biblical span.”
― Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls

Calendar: May 4

A Year: Day to Day Men: 4th of May

The Distance of Space

On May 4, 1953, Ernest Hemingway wins the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction.

Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American novelist, short story writer, and journalist. His economical and understated style had a strong influence on 20th century fiction, while his adventurous lifestyle and his public image brought him admiration from later generations. He published seven novels, six short-story collections, and two non-fiction works. Three of his novels, four short story collections, and three non-fiction works were published posthumously.

In late September of 1921, Hemingway married Hadley Richardson; the couple then moved to France. In Paris, Hemingway met American writer and art collector Gertrude Stein, Irish novelist James Joyce, American poet Ezra Pound and other writers. He was introduced to the expatriate artists and writers of the Montparnasse Quarter referred to as the “Lost Generation”—a term Hemingway popularized with the 1926 publication of his debut novel “The Sun Also Rises”. At Stein’s salon he met influential painter such as Pablo Picasso, Joan Miro, and Juan Gris.

In 1941, the Pulitzer Prize jurors voted unanimously for Ernest Hemingway’s 1940 book “For Whom the Bell Tolls”. Everyone was in favor of the book except for Nicholas Murray Butler, president of Columbia University and ex-officio chairman of the board. Butler vetoed the jurors’ choice, deeming the book offensive and profane. He said, “I hope that you will reconsider before you ask the University to be associated with an award for a work of this nature.” There was no fiction winner that year.

However, Hemingway did go on to win the Pulitzer on May 4, 1953 for his novel, “The Old Man and the Sea”. Some have interpreted Hemingway’s eventual Pulitzer more as a nod to his overall career than as an award for “The Old Man and the Sea”—generally considered a lesser work to “For Whom the Bell Tolls”. Shortly after the publication of “The Old Man and the Sea”, Hemingway went on safari to Africa, where he was almost killed in two successive plane crashes that left him in pain or ill health for much of the rest of his life.

In October 1954, Hemingway received the Nobel Prize in Literature. Because hs was suffering pain from the African accidents, he decided against traveling to Stockholm. Instead he sent a speech to be read: “Writing, at its best, is a lonely life. Organizations for writers palliate the writer’s loneliness but I doubt if they improve his writing. He grows in public stature as he sheds his loneliness and often his work deteriorates. For he does his work alone and if he is a good enough writer he must face eternity, or the lack of it, each day.”