Ernest Hemingway – la prosa semplice e scarna

From America other new tendencies came to Europe at the beginning of the 20th century. Ernest Hemingway  (1899-1961), born in Chicago, joined a volunteer ambulance unit (si unì come volontario nelle ambulanze) in the Italian army when the United States entered the First World War. After being wounded (ferito) he settled (si stabilì) in Paris, among expatriates such as Gertrude Stein and Ezra Pound, and began to write stories. Back in the United States Hemingway became a reporter for Canadian and American newspapers and was soon sent back to Europe to cover such events as the Greek Revolution. Hemingway always remained involved (coinvolto) in action, from the Spanish Civil War to the Normandy landings (sbarco), to expeditions of all kinds – safaris, deep-sea fishing (pesca d’alto mare) etc.  He was a great sportsman and practised many sports like, hunting (caccia), boxing and fishing which provided the background for some of his works  like The Sun Also Rises (1926),A Farewell to Arms (1929),  For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940),  The Old Man and the Sea (1952).  Hemingway was awarded the Nobel prize for  literaturein 1954. In1961 he committed suicide, as had done his father before him. The American author used a straightforward (diretta) prose, with simple sentences, few adjectives and many repetitions; his dialogue were spare (crudi) and he showed a predilection for understatement  particularly effective in his short stories – Men Without Women (1927), Winner Take Nothing (1933) and the First Forty-Nine Stories (1938). Hemingway described a world of despair and nothingness where there is no God, no reality beyond  (oltre) that of suffering, the only thing that matters (che importa) is to face (affrontare) pain with dignity and self-discipline (autodisciplina) in order to overcome (superare) anguish. The rituals of activities such as bull-fighting (corrida), fishing, big-game hunting can help to control despair.