Has anyone ever tried to sue Hemingway for libel?

I just find it to be a funny contrast. With TSAR he was like "fuck it we ball" and wrote a thinly veiled roman à clef featuring unflattering depictions of his friends. Iirc, he even had everyone's real names in the first draft and later changed them. I think he pissed a few people off, but nobody actually brought legal action.

But then we have A Moveable Feast, where according to the new re-released edition, he wrote numerous different openings, which betray some serious concerns about being sued. But then he was growing increasingly paranoid at the time.

On a serious note, I did find that someone threatened a lawsuit over a portrayal in the Snows of Kilimanjaro, but it was something one of those stupid AI search summaries spat out and I couldn't find the actual source.

But yeah - given how often Hem wrote thinly veiled or composite portraits of people he really knew, you have to wonder. But maybe society was not as litigious back then?

Posted Dec 3, 2025, 2:02 AM UTC

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