Ten Indians

Ernest Hemingway, one of the most renowned and influential writers of the 20th century, was born in Oak Park, Illinois, on July 21, 1899. His father was a family physician—much like Nick’s father in “Ten Indians,” a character detail revealed in other Nick Adams stories—and his mother was a musician. During summers, the family spent vacations at Walloon Lake near Petoskey, Michigan, a town referenced in “Ten Indians.” There, the young Hemingway learned to fish, hunt, and camp, experiences that instilled a lifelong love of adventure and the outdoors. These activities also feature in Hemingway’s works, including his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Old Man and the Sea (1952).

After high school, Hemingway worked for the Kansas City Star, whose guidelines emphasizing brevity and focus influenced his distinct Minimalist writing style. In 1918, Hemingway joined the Red Cross as an ambulance driver and was sent to Italy, where he was seriously injured. While he did not engage in active combat, war and its horrors feature in many of his works. His time in Italy and his experiences as a war correspondent during the Spanish Civil War and World War II informed novels such as A Farewell to Arms (1929) and For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940), as well as short stories including “Soldier’s Home” (1925) and “In Another Country” (1926).