James Nagel and Dimitri Villard on Hemingway in Love and War

Ernest Hemingway’s Red Cross experience in Italy during World War I was short, but it changed the course of his life and his writing. From being wounding in July 1918 to the abrupt end to his relationship with nurse Agnes Von Kurowsky, Hemingway would revisit those traumas for the rest of his life and write about them for his entire career.

This pair of tumultuous experiences led to a fascinating book – Hemingway in Love and War – co-written by Hemingway’s hospital roommate Henry Serrano Villard and scholar James Nagel. This book collects Villard’s Red Cross memoir, Von Kurowsky’s wartime diary and letters to Hemingway, as well as Prof. Nagel’s insightful essay about Hemingway’s experiences.

For this show devoted to Hemingway in Love and War, we are lucky to be joined by both Prof. Nagel and Henry Villard's son, who produced the cinematic adaptation of the book, Dimitri Villard.