Curtis L. DeBerg to Speak at Nobel Prize Museum.

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On January 23, 2026, Dr. Curtis L. DeBerg will be a featured speaker at the Nobel Prize Museum in Stockholm. He will present a recently rediscovered artifact containing what scholars believe to be Ernest Hemingway’s final written inscription, penned just days before his death.

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Setting the Record Straight: For a detailed account of my academic tenure, my work with SAGE Global non-profit, & my subsequent retirement from CSU Chico

Official Statement and Formal Response to the University Investigation.

New Screenplay

When two journalists in 2028 uncover a sealed Hemingway letter hidden for a century, they expose a forgotten Italian soldier’s death that fueled Hemingway’s rise to legend—and force the world to ask whether history’s greatest writer built his fame on a lie.

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The Scholar & The Journey

About Dr. Curtis L. DeBerg Dr. Curtis L. DeBerg is a retired university professor, Hemingway scholar, and screenwriter. His unique journey into Ernest Hemingway’s life began in 2016, after DeBerg survived a near-fatal plane crash in Poland. This traumatic event, which mirrored Hemingway’s own famous survival stories, sparked a decade-long quest to understand the author’s resilience.

DeBerg’s research for his book and screenplay led him to St. Marys Hospital and the rediscovery of Hemingway's final inscribed book—a historic find that he will present to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2026.

The Book Behind the Discovery Wrestling With Demons: In Search of the Real Ernest Hemingway

This is not a traditional biography; it is a forensic investigation into the trauma, myths, and realities of an American icon. Fueled by DeBerg's own experience with survival and recovery, Wrestling With Demons peels back the layers of the "Hemingway Myth" to reveal the vulnerable human being beneath. It is the foundational research that led to the screenplay The Hemingway Code and the historic discovery at the Mayo Clinic.

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Welcome to Curtis L. DeBerg’s

WRESTLING WITH DEMONS

“It is not likely that Hemingway was a brave man who sought danger for the sake of the sensations that provided him. What is more likely the truth of his own Odyssey is that he struggled with his cowardice and against a secret lust to suicide all his life, that his inner landscape was a nightmare and he spent his nights wrestling with the gods.”

— Norman Mailer, Esquire, 1961

Interview with the author
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  • “Just as Hemingway mixed his life with his fiction, so DeBerg intertwines his own interesting memoir with Hemingway’s story. In the end, it beautifully illustrates that all of us are shaped by our families, our struggles, and our demons—just as Hemingway was.”

    — Andrew Theising, Author, Hemingway’s Saint Louis: How St. Louisans Shaped His Life and Legacy

  • “DeBerg reimagines the past, bringing it into the present, to gain new insights. It's a fresh, new approach to understanding Hemingway. Amazing!”

    — Christine Whitehead, author, Hemingway’s Daughter

  • "I really like the MDH (i.e., Hemingway's ghost) and CD (Curt DeBerg) dialogues: they communicate information that in this way is much easier to retain than the dry, scholarly works. DeBerg has read an enormous amount and conveyed it with concision."

    --Anton Baer, Academic Editor, Ryde, England, United Kingdom

  • “Wonderful, thoughtful material... DeBerg really did his homework in providing valuable, new information; and his evidence and questions about Hemingway's war experience will be good for the Hemingway world to grapple with.”

    — Rev. Dr. W. Wayne Fraser, retired English professor from Ridley College in St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada

  • "DeBerg has something here that fills a previously empty niche. At times, it feels like employing stream-of-consciousness; flowing between real-world observations, political opinion, personal confessional, and Hemingway scholarship...”

    --Rick Reisinger, doctoral student in English at the University of South Florida

More about Ernest M. Hemingway

Ernest M. Hemingway (1899–1961) was an influential American novelist and short story writer, known for his distinctive style and portrayal of the "Lost Generation."

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More about Wrestling
with Demons

Part biography, part memoir, and part historical fiction, this illuminating mosaic examines Hemingway's life based on revealing new information about his WWI experience. DeBerg argues that his life was influenced more by other factors, such as jealousy, pride, guilt, and especially fear.

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