海明威1899年7月21日生于芝加哥市郊橡胶园小镇。父亲是医生和体育爱好者,母亲从事音乐教育。6个兄弟姐妹中,他排行第二,从小酷爱体育、捕鱼和狩猎。中学毕业后曾去法国等地旅行,回国后当过见习记者。
第一次大战爆发后,他志愿赴意大利当战地救护车司机。1918年夏在前线被炮弹炸成重伤,回国休养。后来去加拿大多伦多市星报任记者。1921年重返巴黎,结识美国女作家斯坦因、青年作家安德森和诗人庞德等。
1923年发表处女作《三个短篇小说和十首诗》,随后游历欧洲各国。1926年出版了长篇小说《太阳照样升起》,初获成功,被斯坦因称为"迷惘的一代。1929年,反映第一次世界大战的长篇巨著《永别了,武器》的问世给作家带来了声誉。 30年代初,海明威到非洲旅行和狩猎。1935年写成《非洲的青山》和一些短篇小说。
1937年发表了描写美国与古巴之间海上走私活动的小说《有的和无的》。西班牙内战期间,他3次以记者身份亲临前线,在炮火中写了剧本《第五纵队》,并创作了以美国人参加西班牙人民反法西斯战争为题材的长篇小说《丧钟为谁而鸣》(1940)。他曾与许多美国知名作家和学者捐款支援西班牙人民正义斗争。
1941年偕夫人玛莎访问中国,支持我国抗日战争。后又以战地记者身份重赴欧洲,并多次参加战斗。战后客居古巴,潜心写作。1952年,《老人与海》问世,深受好评,翌年获普利策奖。1954年获诺贝尔文学奖。卡斯特罗掌权后,他离开古巴返美定居。因身上多处旧伤,百病缠身,精神忧郁, 1961年7月2日用猎枪自杀。海明威去世后发表的遗作,主要有:《海流中的岛屿》(1970)和《伊甸园》(1986)。他那独特的风格和塑造的硬汉子形象对现代欧美文学产生深远的影响。
Hemingway was born and raised in Oak Park, Illinois. After leaving high school he worked for a few months as a reporter, before leaving for the Italian front to become an ambulance driver during World War I, which became the basis for his novel A Farewell to Arms. He was seriously wounded and returned home within the year. In 1922 Hemingway married Hadley Richardson, the first of his four wives, and the couple moved to Paris, where he worked as a foreign correspondent. During his time there he met and was influenced by modernist writers and artists of the 1920s expatriate community known as the "Lost Generation". His first novel, The Sun Also Rises, was written in 1924.
After divorcing Hadley Richardson in 1927 Hemingway married Pauline Pfeiffer; they divorced following Hemingway's return from covering the Spanish Civil War, after which he wrote For Whom the Bell Tolls. Martha Gellhorn became his third wife in 1940, but he left her for Mary Welsh Hemingway after World War II, during which he was present at D-Day and the liberation of Paris.
Shortly after the publication of The Old Man and the Sea in 1952 Hemingway went on safari to Africa, where he was almost killed in a plane crash that left him in pain or ill-health for much of the rest of his life. Hemingway had permanent residences in Key West, Florida, and Cuba during the 1930s and '40s, but in 1959 he moved from Cuba to Ketchum, Idaho, where he committed suicide in the summer of 1961.