Hemingway on War by Ernest Hemingway: book review

Hemingway on War (2014) is a comprehensive collection of Ernest Hemingway’s own works and words on war, edited by his grandson Sean Hemingway. Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) was an American author and war correspondent, who commenced his war experience as a volunteer ambulance driver for the American Red Cross in World War I.

Hemingway also volunteered as a mobile chocolate and cigarette dispenser to the wounded and the soldiers at the front at Fossalta di Piave, cycling to battle lines on bicycle – where he was wounded.

As a reporter, he covered the Greco-Turkish War in 1922 – and five of his dispatches are included in this collection. He covered the Spanish Civil War in 1936 and in 1941 he reported on the Chinese army’s defenses against the Japanese.  In Cuba, Hemingway volunteered to help with the war effort by organizing a private spy network to gather information and to hunt German submarines in the Caribbean. In 1943-44 he worked in London to report on World War II, and was evacuated from Cuba in 1959 during the American Cold War.

The collection includes Hemingway’s short stories, passages from novels, and war correspondence, covering the major global conflicts of the first half of the 20th century. Hence the accounts span both fictional and journalistic depictions of the war, and especially the physical and psychological impact of war and its aftermath.

The passages from Hemingway’s fictional writings represent most of this book, which were heavily influenced by his experiences as a war correspondent. These include extracts from his novels and writings: In Our Time (1925), Farewell to Arms (1929), the play - The Fifth Column (1937), For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940), Across the River and Into the Trees (1950), and post-humously Islands in the Stream (1970).

Hemingway, the 1918 recipient of the Italian Silver Medal of Bravery and the 1954 winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, was an extensive and critically-acclaimed writer and war hero, and this dense 384-page book puts all of his works on war together in one volume. It’s thick with small font, and more like a reference book, that takes forever to read – but it’s worth it. Every single word.

MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of:- The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).