He may be one of the most important figures in the history of 20th-century literature, yet he never published a word. Instead it was in dying that this man made his mark. He was an Italian soldier stationed in a trench along the Piave River in northern Italy during World War I.

On a summer’s night in the final year of the war, he stood directly in front of 18-year-old Ernest Hemingway, who was distributing candy and cigarettes as a Red Cross volunteer. When an Austrian mortar landed near the soldier, he was killed instantly. Hemingway sustained extensive wounds but survived because the soldier’s body took the brunt of the explosion. Had it not been for the soldier there would be no The Sun Also Rises, For Whom the Bell Tolls, The Old Man and the Sea.