High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! "Big Two-Hearted River" is a two-part short story written by American author Ernest Hemingway. The story was published in the 1925 Boni & Liveright edition of In Our Time, the first American volume of Hemingway`s short stories. It features a single protagonist, Hemingway`s recurrent autobiographical character Nick Adams, whose speaking voice is heard just twice. Thematically, the story explores the destructive qualities of war, countered by the healing and regenerative powers of nature. When the piece was published, critics praised the quality of writing, and it is considered important in the Hemingway canon.