Ernest Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast: A Study in the Genre of Memoir

Ernest Hemingway was more than a writer. He was acatalyst for a literary movement that has gone unnoticed – until now. Professor Botta contends that the contemporary genre of memoir became a hybrid example of autobiography in the latter part of the twentieth century, largely due to the treatment of the genre in Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast. Arguably the best-known American writer, Hemingway changed the rules of the writing game by effectively altering the definition of memoir. For the next half-century, the mold he created blossomed into a genre of creative non fiction. In choosing memoir as the genre for A Moveable Feast, Hemingway indelibly etched new characteristics into a style of writing as a popular mechanism to connect readers with the particular past he chose to explore. Professor Botta’s study of the memoir genre is over powering in its originality, demonstrating the parameters of the traditional memoir and Hemingway’s ability to alter the genre to serve his purposes, creating a lasting impact on literature. This close dissection of Hemingway’s classic work, packed with incisive thought, easily convinces readers of the extent to which Hemingway single-handedly sculpted a hybrid genre, transforming fiction into reality.