One True Podcast

Erik Nakjavani shares his one true sentence from Hemingway's Green Hills of Africa.

Amanda Vaill takes us to the French Riviera of the 1920s, drawing from her definitive book, Everybody Was So Young, to describe who Gerald and Sara Murphy were and what they meant to the artists they knew.
Vaill discusses Fitzgerald’s poor behavior, Hemingway’s ambivalence to the rich, and Gerald’s own artistic efforts. Along the way, she suggests what gave the Murphys the enchanting quality that drew so many important figures into their circle.
This episode was recorded on May 17, 2021.

One True Podcast continues its exploration of Hemingway on film by welcoming the legendary actor Adrian Sparks to discuss his iconic portrayal of Hemingway in Papa: Hemingway in Cuba. This film, released in 2015, made history as the first Hollywood production on the island since the trade embargo.

Sparks describes the magical experience of using Hemingway’s actual typewriter as they filmed on location inside the Finca Vigía, the challenges of portraying such a complex man in the final years of his life, and the special relationship between Hemingway and the Cuban people, which he encountered first-hand while starring as Papa.
Opening clip: Papa: Hemingway in Cuba trailer (Magenta Light Productions, Studio 2050, Sunstone Film Productions).
This episode was recorded on March 27, 2020.

One True Podcast welcomes Robert K. Elder, author of the entertaining and fascinating Hemingway in Comics. In this episode, we talk about how popular artists have depicted Hemingway across various cultures and the similarities that exist between the style of comics and the iceberg principle.
Elder examines how international artists have depicted, Disney-fied, satirized, and mythologized Hemingway in their representations of him as teenage soldier, Paris boozehound, and aging Cuban fisher. And, of course, Papa’s iconic image in that bulky turtleneck sweater makes an appearance.
This episode was recorded on September 18, 2020.

In this episode, the brilliant historian Mark Thompson, author of the magisterial The White War, separates fact from fiction as he analyzes Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms, including its epic depiction of the devastating Caporetto retreat.
In writing his great war novel, Hemingway dramatically recreated the Italian Front of World War I by consulting histories, maps, novels, and others’ firsthand accounts. He also drew from his own traumatic experiences in northern Italy in 1918.
Thompson turns his attention to the historical context of the fiction, focusing on the “forgotten front” of Italy during World War I. He addresses the military fiascoes and political incompetence, bringing to the surface the subtext of A Farewell to Arms, Hemingway’s timeless classic.
This episode was recorded on September 6, 2019.