After the war, Hemingway married his fourth wife, Mary Welsh, a Time magazine correspondent. Drawing on his World War II experiences, he published Across the River and Into the Trees, about a May-December romance. A subtle consideration of war in modern times, this book was less realistic and more symbolic than his previous work and was roundly attacked by critics. However, his 1952 publication of The Old Man and the Sea restored his reputation and earned Hemingway the Pulitzer Prize in 1953. In 1954, Hemingway won the Nobel Prize for Literature. The prize committee cited the power of his style, his mastery of narration, and his admiration for the individual who "fights the good fight" in a "world of reality overshadowed by violence and death."
In 1959, Hemingway bought a home in Ketchum, Idaho. In declining health from diabetes, high blood pressure, and mental depression (possibly caused by a genetic illness unrecognized at the time), he attended the Spanish bullfights in 1960 and later celebrated his 60th birthday. At the Mayo Clinic, he twice underwent electric shock treatments, which didn't help him. So great was Hemingway's stature as both a writer and legendary figure, the world mourned after his suicide by shotgun at his home in Ketchum on July 2, 1961.
A number of Hemingway's works were published posthumously. A Moveable Feast, published in 1964, contains striking and sometimes abusive representations of the famous literary figures Hemingway had known in Paris. Islands in the Stream, published in 1970, is a semi-autobiographical novel, set in the Caribbean, about a painter, his relationships with his family, his loneliness, and his violent death. The Dangerous Summer, published in 1985, is based on a bullfight "duel" Hemingway witnessed in Spain in 1960. The Garden of Eden, published in 1986, recounts the love affairs of two women and one man, explores complex gender issues, and has prompted many critics to reconsider earlier assessments of Hemingway's machismo.
