Maya Hawke, Sarah Pidgeon, Richard Schiff, Titus Welliver, Joy Sunday, Dominic Sessa, Will Harrison and three generations of hemingways Bring the centennial to Life at 92NY
NEW YORK, October 22, 2026 — One hundred years to the day after Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises was first published, Maya Hawke, Sarah Pidgeon, Dominic Sessa, Richard Schiff, Titus Welliver, Joy Sunday and Will Harrison joined three generations of the Hemingway family at The 92nd Street Y, New York. The evening of dramatic readings and conversation honored the novel that defined the Lost Generation and transformed American fiction.
From left to right: Thomas Beller, Richard Schiff, Maya Hawke, Joy Sunday, Patrick Hemingway Adams, Angela Hemingway Charles, Brendan Hemingway, Will Harrison, Sarah Pidgeon, Titus Welliver, Jay McInerney.
Presented by 92NY and Hemingway Ltd., the celebration on the Geffen Stage at Kaufmann Concert Hall continued the Unterberg Poetry Center's 80-year tradition of bringing actors and writers to the stage to give new life to great works of literature. The evening unfolded across three dramatic readings. Schiff (The West Wing), Sunday (Wednesday) and Welliver (Bosch) opened the program. Pidgeon (Love Story) and Harrison followed. Hawke (Stranger Things) and Sessa (The Holdovers) closed the night with the novel's final scene.
Between readings, novelists Jay McInerney and Thomas Beller were joined onstage by Angela Hemingway Charles, Hemingway's daughter-in-law; Brendan Hemingway, his grandson; and Patrick Hemingway Adams, his great-grandson. Together, the three make up the board of directors of Hemingway Ltd. The wide-ranging conversation covered the novel, its place in American literature a century after publication, and what it means to carry the Hemingway name.
Angela Hemingway Charles first read the novel at 19 or 20. She read it again at the suggestion of her late husband, Jack Hemingway, ahead of a six-month honeymoon through the places in Europe his father had known, and found it changed her view of the author: "People think that Ernest Hemingway is a real tough guy. Well, he had such emotion and tenderness and compassion for people in general, not just his characters."
Reflecting on how each generation has approached his grandfather's work, Brendan Hemingway said: "We've outlasted the baggage. We've outrun the backlash. You can now just read him or not, and read him because you want to. And I think that's a great reason to read a book."
Watching the novel performed, Patrick Hemingway Adams said: "We've seen it adapted onto film. Everybody's listened to audiobooks, but to see it sort of acted out in the way that it likely appeared in his head, I've never seen anything like that before."
McInerney, whose debut novel takes its epigraph from The Sun Also Rises, said: "When I wrote my first novel, I remember hoping it would be half as good as The Sun Also Rises."
He then recited the passage he borrowed for Bright Lights, Big City: "How'd you go bankrupt?" Bill asked. "Two ways," Mike said. "Gradually, and then suddenly."
The New York celebration formed a central moment in the year-long international centennial program led by Collective 222, the global Agency of Record for Hemingway Ltd. Founded by Bettina Klinger, Collective 222 handles every aspect of the estate, including domestic and foreign literary rights, licensing, and film and television projects.
"A centennial should do more than look back; it should open the door to the next generation of readers," said Bettina Klinger, founder and president of Collective 222. "Bringing these extraordinary actors and writers together with three generations of the Hemingway family at 92NY put the work itself at the center of the celebration. Our ambition throughout this anniversary year is to honor the integrity of Hemingway's legacy while creating new ways for people to discover it."
The 92NY event followed the opening of the international celebrations at Ritz Paris on September 21 and 22. A private reception at Bar Hemingway was followed by a cocktail lunch bringing members of the Hemingway family together with press and media.
The wider anniversary program also places renewed attention on Hemingway's screen legacy. Previously announced projects developed with the estate's involvement include A Moveable Feast, from Graydon Carter and Harrison Vail's Par Avion Pictures, with Scott Z. Burns writing the screenplay. The project explores Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald and their lives in Paris, and is being developed in collaboration with the board of Hemingway Ltd.
The full transcript of the evening's conversation with the Hemingway family, Jay McInerney and Thomas Beller is available on 92NY's Substack: