In the footsteps of Ernest Hemingway

Writers from the Midwest stand out, however. Ernest Hemingway, perhaps the most famous of the midwesterners in France, with A Farewell to Arms or For Whom the Bell Tolls. He was born on July 21, 1899 in Chicago's Oak Park neighborhood to a doctor, hunter and fisherman, and a musician mother. Like his father, he loved fishing and would later bring back stories about it. He quickly became a reporter for the Kansas City Star. In 1917, he joined the Red Cross and became an ambulance driver on the Italian front. Seriously wounded at the age of eighteen, he was hospitalized in Milan where he fell in love with a nurse, Agnes von Kurowsky: this was to be the plot of A Farewell to Arms. Back in the United States, he marries Hadley Richardson and thinks only of returning to Europe. He got a journalistic assignment and was not yet known when he settled in Paris in 1920 where he met Gertrude Stein who taught him to write in a precise, clear and uncluttered style. Three Stories and Ten Poems (1923), In Our Time (1925), where the themes of violence, war and death are already present. He frequents the intellectuals of Paris. In May 1925, he met Fitzgerald in Paris at the Diego Bar: the latter was already famous and realized Hemingway's quality as a writer; a relationship marked by both friendship and rivalry was born between them. After his father's suicide, his divorce and his remarriage, he published A Farewell to Arms (1919), a work inspired by his own experience on the Italian front. In 1930, he moved to Florida in Key West and wrote Death in the Afternoon with bullfights as a backdrop. In 1936, he was in Spain and joined the Republican forces. He became an alcoholic and wrote En avoir ou pas (1937) in which he denounced social injustice; For Whom the Bell Tolls(1940) was inspired by his involvement in the Spanish war. He then moved to a large house near Havana and returned to Paris, which he loved, many times. In 1952, The Old Man and theSea denounced the precariousness of material success. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954. Aged, ill and physically diminished, he committed suicide on July 2, 1961 in his property in Kechtum, Idaho. Three years after his death, Paris is a party was published.

In the Oak Park neighborhood, west of downtown Chicago, it is possible to visit his childhood home and the museum dedicated to him, either on your own or on a guided tour of course! The two buildings of theErnest Hemingway Birthplace and Museum are nestled only a few feet apart. In the museum, visitors will discover everything there is to know about the author and his life. It is possible to read the diary he kept as a child, some of his early works as well and even discover photos from his youth... Aficionados can indulge themselves in the small store that sells novels, posters and other gifts. The Victorian-style house where he spent the first years of his life was built by his grandparents. There is nothing more pleasant and confusing than to walk on the ground where little Ernest took his first steps!

Other great names to remember

Another Midwestern genius, Francis Scott Fitzgerald was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1896. Leader of the Lost Generation, he discovered Ernest Hemingway and launched his career. Fitzgerald marked American literature with Gatsby the Magnificent (1925), a splendid drama considered his masterpiece. He also wrote other novels: The Other Side of Paradise (in his house in St. Paul in 1920), The Happy and the Damned (1922), Tender is the Night (1934) and The Last Mogul (1941). His best-known short stories are Berenice Gets a Haircut (1920), The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (1921), adapted for film by David Fincher in 2008 and starring Brad Pitt, A Diamond as Big as the Ritz (1922) and Winter Dreams (1922). Fitzgerald is also known for his sentimental escapades with his wife Zelda. He lived in a certain poverty at the end of his life, finally little recognized during his lifetime

We also think of Carl Sandburg. Born in 1878 in Galesburg, Illinois, Sandburg is one of the best poets of the American industrial era, a "poet of the people" who combines the mystical patriotism of Walt Whitman and the social activism of Woody Guthrie. He joined the army and served in the Spanish-American War in 1898. He became a writer, focusing on the unrest and spirit of the midwest and urban America. He published four volumes of poems: Chicago Poems (1916), Oke and Steel (1920), Good Morning America (1928) and The People, Yes (1936). Sandburg is also best known for his colossal six-volume biography of Abraham Lincoln. In 1927 his American Songbag was published, a collection of folk songs and poems he collected during his travels throughout the United States. He was twice awarded the Pulitzer Prize: in 1940, for Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years and The War Years, and in 1950, for Complete Poems. Sandburg was married to Lillian Steichen. He died in July 1967.

In the same vein, Hamlin Garland, born in 1860 in West Salem, Wisconsin, was known for his fictional works, mainly about the life of Midwestern farmers in the 1910s and 1920s.

Another great American writer of the last century, Thornton Niven Wilder was born in Madison, Wisconsin, in 1897. The son of an American diplomat, he spent much of his childhood in China. His brother, Amos, and three younger sisters, Charlotte, Isabel, and Janet, were also well-known writers. Considered by his classmates to be gifted, Wilder began writing at an early age. In 1926, he published his first novel, The Cabala, and in 1927, The Bridge of San Luis Rey was a great commercial success and won his first Pulitzer Prize in 1928. Between 1930 and 1937, he taught literature at the University of Chicago. During World War II, Wilder rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel in the Air Force and received numerous decorations. After the war, he became a professor at the University of Hawaii and then taught poetry at Harvard. He continued to write, however, and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1963. He died in December 1975, in Connecticut, where he had been living for several years with his sister Isabel.

Sinclair Lewis, born in Sauk Center, Minnesota, in 1885, was the first American to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1930, for his novel Babitt (published in 1922). This novelist describes modern American society, as well as the sometimes vulgar foibles of small country towns.

Laura Ingalls Wilder, born in 1867 in Wisconsin, is the author of the series of children's novels Little House on the Prairie (published from 1932 onwards), from which the well-known television program was created. The Ingalls moved constantly, settling in several Midwestern states, including Missouri, Kansas, Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota. Inspired by her experiences and her own family, Laura Ingalls' novels depict life on Midwestern farms in the 1870s. In 1929, she wrote her autobiography, Pioneer Girl, which was published long after her death in 2014

More recently, Iowa native Jane Smiley made her mark with A Thousand Acres and Moo. These days, Anoka, Minnesota-born Garrison Keillor is known for his novels but also for his comedy radio shows. Also, Thomas McGuane, born in Wyandott in 1939, evokes life in the heart of Michigan. A writer of nature and the great outdoors, he has published nine novels, of which Ninety-two in the Shade(1973) is the most famous

Some contemporary feathers!

Joseph Coulson, born in Detroit, Michigan, in 1957, is also to be noted. A novelist and poet, he is famous for his social satire and his sharp criticism of American society. He has written several plays and poems, as well as two novels, The Decline of the Moon (2004) and The Great Lakes Blues (2007).

Another Michigan native and champion of the great outdoors, Jim Harrison is the author of Northern Michigan and Legends of Autumn. Finally, authors such as Chad Harbach with L'Art du jeu (published in French in 2013) or Nickolas Butler with Retour à Little Wing (published in French in 2015) introduce us to contemporary Wisconsin.

In 2002, The Devil in the White City was published by Erik Larson(b. 1954), author of several bestsellers. It has sold more than two million copies. Erik Larson was inspired by real events and characters to write this detective novel which takes place during the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago. At that time, a certain H.H. Holmes, a pharmacist considered to be the first serial killer in American history, was rampant.

The Irish author Nuala O'Faolain (1940-2008) published in 2005 The Story of Chicago May, which tells the story of a thief who seduced men in order to steal them. This novel was awarded the Prix Fémina étranger in 2006.

We must also mention Veronica Roth (born in 1988) who wrote in 2011 the Divergent trilogy, published in more than 20 million copies worldwide ... These novels are set in a post-apocalyptic Chicago where society is divided into five clans. The trilogy is of course adapted to the cinema and in several parts.

Sebastian Barry, a writer born in Dublin in 1955, wrote On the Side of Canaan (2011) which tells the story of Lilly Berre from her childhood to her arrival in Chicago. Daryl Gregory (b. 1965) published a science fiction novel The Education of Stony Mayhallin the same year.

Museum of American Writers

At 180 North Michigan Avenue is theAmerican Writers Museum (AWM), which we can translate as Museum of American Writers. Opened in 2017, this space aims to trace 500 years of American literature through the lives and works of the 100 most famous writers. Inspired by the Writers Museum in Dublin, Malcol O'Hara, a retired banker, embarked on this crazy project, the first of its kind in the United States! This museum is driven by an interactive concept. Technology has a place of honor, as well as the sound dimension, an attractive way to bring back to life all the most beautiful American writers. One can also remember, in the manner of Proust, thanks to the smells that these writers were particularly fond of! In short, a museum that combines classical culture and modernity.