The Snows of Kilimanjaro

The Snows of Kilimanjaro is the name of both a collection of short stories by Ernest Hemingway and the premier story within the collection.

Considered by Hemingway to be his finest story, The Snows of Kilimanjaro was first published in Esquire magazine in 1936 and then republished in The Fifth Column and the First Forty-nine Stories (1938).

The collection includes the following stories:

• The Snows of Kilimanjaro
• A Clean, Well-Lighted Place
• A Day's Wait
• The Gambler, the Nun, and the Radio
• Fathers and Sons
• In Another Country
• The Killers
• A Way You'll Never Be
• Fifty Grand
• The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber

Story

The story centers on the memories of a writer who is taking a safari in Africa. He develops a gangrenous wound and lies prostrate awaiting his slow death. This loss of physical capability causes him to look inside himself – at his memories of the past years. He realizes that although he has seen and experienced many wonderful and astonishing things during his life, he had never made a record of the events; his status as a writer is contradicted by his reluctance to actually write. Thus he dies, having lived through so much and yet having lived only for the moment, with no regard to the future.

Film version

In 1952 a film version of the short story was directed by Henry King, starring Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner and Leo G. Carroll.