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Ernest Hemingway was born in a Chicago suburb in 1899, but his family spent summers at a lake cabin in Michigan where Hemingway gained his well-documented appreciation for the outdoors. During his youth, he became interested in journalism, which led him to a career in reporting. The succinct, factual style of journalistic writing had an obvious influence on his fiction, which was uniquely lean and unembellished for its time. Hemingway’s reporting also led him to other meaningful experiences—he covered the Spanish Civil War for the North American Newspaper Alliance, which not only influenced his writing but also his love life, as he began a romantic relationship with his soon-to-be third wife while in Spain (despite still being married to his second wife). Hemingway was married to four different women throughout his life. Additionally, unrelated to reporting, Hemingway volunteered in World War I and was also involved in World War II, experiences that had a significant impact on his writing.
Hemingway was also known for his semi-autobiographical fiction, as he often used details, characters, and framing devices related to his own relationships and experiences. Certainly, his multiple failed marriages and his memories—both happy and traumatic—of his young adult years during WWI can be seen in “The Snows of Kilimanjaro.” Hemingway was fond of Africa and wrote Green Hills of Africa, a work of nonfiction, about a safari he and his second wife went on in eastern Africa. During this trip, Hemingway contracted dysentery and had to be evacuated—a clear inspiration for “The Snows.” Other influences on the details of “The Snows” include Hemingway’s friend and fellow writer F. Scott Fitzgerald, who is given the pseudonym “Julian” in the story. Julian’s obsession with the wealthy—and his subsequent disappointment in their immoral conduct—reflects Fitzgerald’s own preoccupation with the upper classes, which can be seen in such works as The Great Gatsby. Additionally, Harry’s often bleak perception of his own life likely mirrors that of Hemingway, who suffered from mental illness and died by suicide in 1961.
