We continue our exploration of Hemingway's short stories with his masterful narrative, "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place." To aid us in this effort, we're joined by Jeffrey Herlihy-Mera, who is a professor at the University of Puerto Rico and served as the 2022 Obama Fellow at the Obama Institute for Transnational American Studies. Herlihy-Mera is the author of, among other works, Decolonizing American Spanish.

In this conversation, we examine key dynamics between the major characters in this very short story. Along the way, we ponder the various religious and existential themes that emerge as well as the bilingual nature of the story and how to read and appreciate the story in translation.

Join us as we meet up with two waiters and an old man in "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place."

Welcome to the eighth of our eighteen shows celebrating the centenary of the Paris edition of Hemingway’s book of vignettes, in our time.

On the heels of the vignette about Nick's war injury, this bombardment scene evokes the idea that there are no atheists in foxholes while, at the same time, capturing the transactional nature of religion during wartime. We discuss various ways this vignette treats the topic of religion, try to gain a sense of the narrator's identity, and draw connections to other works such as A Farewell to Arms and "A Way You'll Never Be."

Join us as we explore in our time before it became In Our Time!

Welcome to the seventh of our eighteen shows celebrating the centenary of the Paris edition of Hemingway’s book of vignettes, in our time.

In this important vignette, Hemingway depicts Nick's war injury and his "separate peace" with Rinaldi. We discuss Hemingway's own wounding during WWI, key differences between the final version of the vignette and early drafts, and Young's influential ideas about the "wound theory." We also take on various questions: Is Rinaldi dead by the end of the vignette? Is the protagonist Nick Adams and, if so, what do we make of the various, inconsistent accounts of his war wounding here and in other stories. And much more.

Join us as we explore in our time before it became In Our Time!

The Spanish Civil War was a brutal and maddeningly complex historical event, with enormous repercussions on Ernest Hemingway’s life and career. To guide us through the many moving parts and frayed relationships, we welcome back Amanda Vaill to One True Podcast.

Vaill’s essential book, Hotel Florida: Truth, Love, and Death in the Spanish Civil War, guides us through the events of the war, including the private adventures of Hemingway, Martha Gellhorn, John Dos Passos, Robert Capa, Gerda Taro, and more. We discuss what the war meant to Hemingway and his writing that would follow, and how many of his relationships would never be the same.

Julie Schumacher, author of The Dear Committee Trilogy (Dear Committee Members, The Shakespeare Requirement , and The English Experience), shares her one true sentence from Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises. As Schumacher explores, Hemingway's short, terse writing often leads to some "long, meandering, winding roads of sentences" like the one she's chosen for this episode. In addition, she raises intriguing questions about how Hemingway drafted the sentence, examines what makes certain characters and dialogue so compelling in The Sun Also Rises, and discusses her own creative process.

Welcome to the sixth of our eighteen shows celebrating the centenary of the Paris edition of Hemingway’s book of vignettes, in our time.

The scene depicts the execution of six Greek officials toward the end of 1922. In this episode, we discuss the history of that trial and execution, the journalistic coverage of events, and Hemingway's fictional treatment of the execution. We also relate this vignette to other works, such as A Farewell to Arms, For Whom the Bell Tolls, and even Tintoretto's Crucifixion. We also continue examining how the first third of the book starts cohering into a larger project.

Join us as we explore in our time before it became In Our Time!

Welcome to the fifth of our eighteen shows celebrating the centenary of the Paris edition of Hemingway’s book of vignettes, in our time.

This scene of a barricade and a retreat continues Hemingway's brilliant depictions of Battle of Mons. In this episode, we explore some historical aspects of that retreat, compare the narrative voice and point of view to chapter four, and much more. As always, we examine how these first five vignettes are cohering into a larger project.

Join us as we explore in our time before it became In Our Time!

The two great titans of twentieth-century American literature – Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner – never met. They corresponded only a time or two; however, they were always on each other’s minds. Their hyper-awareness of the other’s recent work led sometimes to envy, sometimes to awe, and frequently to catty comments.

To help us learn more about these two men and their fraught relationship, we invite Prof. Ahmed Honeini of Royal Holloway, University of London, to the program. Honeini is the founder of Faulkner Studies in the UK and has written the superb book, William Faulkner and Mortality: A Fine Dead Sound.

Honeini expertly guides us through Hemingway and Faulkner’s lives, works, and relationship as One True Podcast continues its investigation of Hemingway’s many rivalries.