Born in Oak Park, Illinois on July 21, 1899, Ernest Hemingway began his writing career at the tender age of seventeen, writing for a small newspaper office in Kansas City. It is there that many believe Hemingway began to write with his terse style that featured straight ahead prose and his penchant for understatement.

Prior to the United States entering World War I, Hemingway joined a volunteer ambulance unit in the Italian army. During his service, he was wounded in action leading to his being decorated by the Italian Government.

After his service, he returned to the US where he again worked as a reporter for Canadian and American newspapers. During the roaring 1920's, Hemingway began his literary career with his first important novel, The Sun Also Rises (1926). Later, A Farewell to Arms (1929), a seemingly somewhat autobiographical story of an American ambulance officer's disillusionment with the war firmly established Hemingway as literary force. His skills as a reporter was on full display with For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940) and his terse understated format was featured in his most well known work, The Old Man and the Sea (1952). Many of Hemingway's novels would also be made into movies.

Hemingway would be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954. True to his active nature, the writer was unable to attend his own award ceremony in Stockholm due to injuries he had sustained from an airplane crash while hunting in Uganda.

Hemingway died in Idaho on July 2, 1961. As had his father, the writer committed suicide, killing himself with his trusted shotgun while at his home in Ketchum.

I Like Americans

I like Americans.
They are so unlike Canadians.
They do not take their policemen seriously.
They come to Montreal to drink.
Not to criticize.
They claim they won the war.
But they know at heart that they didn't.
They have such respect for Englishmen.
They like to live abroad.
They do not brag about how they take baths.
But they take them.
Their teeth are so good.
And they wear B.V.D.'s all the year round.
I wish they didn't brag about it.
They have the second best navy in the world.
But they never mention it.
They would like to have Henry Ford for president.
But they will not elect him.
They saw through Bill Bryan.
They have gotten tired of Billy Sunday.
Their men have such funny hair cuts.
They are hard to suck in on Europe.
They have been there once.
They produced Barney Google, Mutt and Jeff.
And Jiggs.
They do not hang lady murderers.
They put them in vaudeville.
They read the Saturday Evening Post
And believe in Santa Claus.
When they make money
They make a lot of money.
They are fine people.