American novelist and short-story writer awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954 Ernest Hemingway’ was raised in Oak Park, Illinois. After high school, he was leaving for the Italian Front in World War I. In 1918, he was seriously wounded and returned home. His wartime experiences formed the basis for his novel A Farewell to Arms. In 1929, Ernest Hemingway’s classic A Farewell to Arms wa... Read More
The secret of Hemingway's endurance as a storyteller is that he invites the active participation of the reader in the creation of the story. The short story In Another Country was first published in 1927. Many of the characters grapple with a loss of function, a loss of purpose, and a loss of faith. This story is about an ambulance corps member in Milan during World War I. Although unnamed, he... Read More
When you hear the phrase "spy fiction," two words slide into your mind: James Bond. Yet some of our very finest literary writers, such as Joseph Conrad, Norman Mailer and W. Somerset Maugham, also have been drawn to the moral ambiguity of the cloak-and-dagger world. Ashenden, or the British Agent is a 1928 collection of loosely linked stories. The British Agent is founded on Maugham's experienc... Read More
Erich Maria Remarque was a German novelist who created many works about the horrors of war. During World War I, Remarque was conscripted into the German Army at the age of 18. On 31 July, he was wounded by shrapnel in the left leg, right arm and neck, and was repatriated to an army hospital in Germany where he spent the rest of the war. With All Quiet on the Western Front, Remarque emerged as a... Read More
Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust, known as Marcel Proust, was a French novelist, critic, and essayist best known for his monumental novel In Search of Lost Time. In Search of Lost Time follows the narrator's recollections of childhood and experiences into adulthood during the late 19th century to early 20th century aristocratic France, while reflecting on the loss of time and lack of... Read More