Hemingway’s Passions: His Women, His Wars, and His Writing

Ernest Hemingway’s passion was writing, and he was inspired by a lifetime of daring adventures and encouraged by the many women in his life. He nurtured his creativity by purposely seeking dangerous situations to test his own levels of courage and to create literary heroes that displayed grace under pressure. His masculine, adventurous spirit appealed to women of all ages, including four wives and a long list of legendary actresses, and he frequently transformed the women in his life into memorable fictional characters.

In 1950, Hemingway told Marlene Dietrich that he truly loved only five women. Who were these women and why did he love them? In Hemingway’s Passions, Hemingway scholar Nancy Sindelar answers these questions. Through quotations from his works and personal letters, as well as more than sixty photographs--many of which have not been previously published--she captures Hemingway’s life and romantic adventures, revealing his own feelings about his romantic relationships and the ways his experiences with these women appear in his literary works.

Much has been written about Hemingway, but to date no book has linked the women he loved to his written work. The stories of Hemingway’s romantic relationships reveal not only the influence these women had on his writing, but also his personal ambition, heartbreak, and literary triumphs and trials. Sindelar’s provocative analyses of Hemingway’s literature give fresh insight into the life of a legendary author, outdoorsman, adventurer, and lover.

Nancy W. Sindelar, PhD, is the author of Influencing Hemingway: The People and Places That Shaped His Life and Work and a popular presenter on the life and work of Ernest Hemingway. She has made multiple presentations at the International Colloquium Ernest Hemingway in Havana, Cuba; the American Literature Association Conferences in Washington, DC, Boston, and San Francisco; the Hemingway Society Conferences in Venice and Paris as well as Oak Park, Illinois, and Sheridan, Wyoming; and keynoted the Hemingway Festivals in Sun Valley, Idaho.

She also has presented at the American Library in Paris; keynoted the Michigan Hemingway Society Conference and the Hemingway Days Festival in Key West, Florida; and guided walking tours through young Hemingway’s Oak Park. She has been a guest lecturer at numerous libraries and universities, a cultural enrichment speaker on luxury cruises to Cuba and the Caribbean, and lived in Hemingway’s Ketchum, Idaho home as the 2021 Writer-in-Residence. Nancy is a board member of the Ernest Hemingway Foundation of Oak Park and teaches ＂Hemingway’s Women＂ at the University of California, Riverside and the Newberry Library, Chicago.

Nancy’s writing and presentations are energized by her passion for all things Hemingway, her research into his private letters and published works, and her extensive travel to and knowledge of the locales that were important to him. She has stood in the bedroom where Hemingway was born and in the foyer where he ended his life, and has visited all the places in between.