Italy Reads

2014 – 2015 Novel: Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms

Click on image to visit JCU Italy Read’s Page. (Image found: http://www.randomhouse.com)

Italy Reads is John Cabot University’s community-based reading and cultural exchange program that began in 2009 with a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts for The Big Read Rome.

The Big Read Rome was a great success; students from nearly 20 Italian public and international high schools in Rome read Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, viewed the film at JCU’s “Cinema Mockingbird,” attended theater productions by The English Theatre of Rome, and actively participated in book discussions with JCU students.

The success of The Big Read Rome led John Cabot University to expand this American cultural exchange program to a wider Italian high school community and create our own program which we called Italy Reads. We now count 40 Italian public and international high schools and over 100 teachers of English and their students among Italy Reads participants. (From the Italy Reads JCU Page).

 

The official edition being used of A Farewell to Arms is the Vintage Classics Special Edition (ISBN 9780099582564).

Learn more about Italy Reads and how you can participate, by visiting their website.

 

About the 2014 – 2015 Author: Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway: (Wikipedia Images)

Nobel Prize winner Ernest Hemingway, best known for his works A Farewell to Arms, The Sun Also Rises and The Old Man and the Sea, was born on July 21, 1899 in Oak Park (formerly Cicero), Illinois.  From an early age, he began writing and by high school was working on his school’s newspaper. Eventually, he went on to become a journalist, working for the Kansas Star.

During World War I, he served as an ambulance driver in the Italian Army, and received the Italian Silver Medal of Bravery.  Hemingway suffered injuries that led him to be admitted to a hospital in Milan.  There he met Agnes von Kurowsky, a nurse to whom he would later propose.  Initially, Agnes accepted his proposal, but later declined.  It was the combination of these two experiences, being involved in the war and the romance with Agnes, that served as inspiration for his novel A Farewell to Arms.  

To learn more about Ernest Hemingway’s life and works, visit The Ernest Hemingway Home & Museum.