One City, One Book: Hemingway’s Paris with Peter Hays

Recently returned from Paris for his 14th International Hemingway Conference, University of California professor and Hemingway scholar Peter Hays will examine the legendary author’s wild young years and early writing life in the 1920s when he presents “Hemingway’s Paris.” It’s all part of the celebration for Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast, which voters chose as Walnut Creek’s 2018 One City, One Book. REGISTER>

Hays will discuss Paris today in contrast with the 1920s city about which Hemingway wrote in A Moveable Feast. He will also explore Hemingway’s friendships with other Paris-based writers, including Ford Maddox and F. Scott Fitzgerald, and give attention to Hemingway’s first marriage and its dissolution.

Hays is emeritus professor of English at the University of California, Davis. He has taught in UC’s Comparative Literature Department and chaired both the German Department (one year) and the English Department (three years). Hays has also taught at Johannes Gutenberg Universität in Mainz, Germany as a Fulbright lecturer. He has published six books, including five on Ernest Hemingway, and more than 100 articles and notes.

This is the 13th year that the Walnut Creek Library Foundation has produced One City One Book, which provides opportunities for community members to come together through the experience of reading to discuss a work of literature that’s accessible to adults and teens and touches on themes of common interest. 2018 One City, One Book is sponsored by a generous grant from Wells Fargo and supported by the East Bay Times and Minuteman Press Lafayette. This year’s program is in partnership with the Friends of the Walnut Creek Library and the Contra Costa County Library.