Nationalized ¿Habanero Hemingway?

On the occasion of an interview by the famous American writer Ernest Hemingway to the Cuban press after news that he had been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, the interviewee said: "This is a prize that belongs to Cuba, because my work was intended and created in Cuba, with my people of Cojimar, where I am citizen. Through all the translations present this adopted country where I have my books and my house?. After reading the above is resolved perhaps his surprise when confronted with the title of this article. In these words he meant Hemingway Cojimar, Havana seaside town where even though the U.S. had no settlement at all, if it was a place dear to him, his furious love of fishing of marlin and be mentioned fishing village where he had anchored your boat, "The Pillar", the same as used in their bets almost daily with marine nature. But it was not only the location of the largest of the Antilles in the Caribbean Sea and thus the great possibility to hook a huge marlin Cuba that attracted the writer of "Wuthering Heights?.

Was varied range of attractions that found the writer to the island, from which in 1928 visited Cuba for the first time to the point of linking to it almost continuously from 1933 until near the time of his death. In 1949, said in a chronicle of the reasons for his long residence in Cuba. He spoke, of course, the Gulf Stream, "where the best and most abundant fish I've seen in my life?; Of 18 types of mango were harvested on their property, their breeding fighting cocks ... and said casually: "You live on this island (...) because in the cool of the morning works better and more comfortably than any other site.? His first refuge was the Hotel Sevilla in Havana, already discussed in previous work was one of the most luxurious hotels in Cuba at the time. There ended his world famous novel "For Whom the Bell Tolls, but did not stay at the hotel Prado street much longer. It was decided then to spend their days and nights in a much more modest. Located on Obispo Street still in the heart of the oldest part of town, which is known today as the historic center of Havana, the Hotel Ambos Mundos was his new home.

Its still preserved colonial atmosphere, tranquility and above all its location near the port city to sudden arrests excellent sailors, Hemingway tended to go to the Ambos Mundos. For his story "The marlin fishing at the height of Morro?, With whom he returned to journalism after having stayed away from the profession for over ten years, are known not a few of the customs of that guest of Both Worlds . He slept with his feet toward the east. That way the sun, when starting to hit the face, forcing him to leave his bed. Then from the window, scanned the environment: the Cathedral, the port entrance, the fishing town of Casablanca, the roofs of buildings. The Cuban flag waving on top of the Castillo del Morro at the entrance of the bay, he indicated the wind direction and sea curls made him suddenly realize if the winds were good early. The conditions were favorable for fishing then the needle and the narrator, after taking a shower, put on an old khaki pants, a shirt either, dry moccasins and down to breakfast before heading to the boat.

Sometimes in shorts, slippers Basque, almost always without socks and a light shirt, he was seen walking down the street Obispo. In "Islands in the Stream?, Another of his books, evoke characteristic smells that way during the years of the 30s of last century: the flour sacks and stored in the dust of flour, the newly opened shipping boxes, the smell of roasted coffee, which the writer was a stronger sense than a drink in the morning, the delicious smell of snuff. Of course, during your stay at the Ambos Mundos not neglect his passion, writing, as recognized many years later when even had already moved his residence in Havana for another site. In 1958, in his famous interview with George Plimpton, recalled: "The Ambos Mundos in Havana, was a good place to work? .. Management still remains almost intact hotel room on the fifth floor used by the American writer. However, in contrast to Hemingway's satisfaction with the hotel, his third wife Martha Gellhorn, began to bother the small room and the lack of privacy during the visit of the friends of the husband.

It was she who sought and found Finca Vigia, a ranch located in the town of San Francisco de Paula, 30 minutes from downtown Havana. The house met certainly exceptional conditions for the writer to develop his fundamental work, literature. Quiet, secluded, surrounded by lush tropical vegetation, it probably would allow the encounter with the Muses. In this place certainly moved and managed to write a lot in his last 22 years. There were several light novels: "Across the River and Into the Trees?," The Old Man and the Sea?, "A Moveable Feast? and "Islands in the Stream?. Also another left unfinished novel, "The Garden of Eden?. And also many articles and columns for periodicals, including the report "A bloody summer?, About hand in hand witnessed by him in Spain, including bullfighters Antonio Ordonez and Luis Miguel Dominguin. "I always had good luck writing in Cuba ... came to express once in a letter. The house after Hemingway's death was transferred to the Cuban state will writer's own embodied in his will, to be devoted to botanical research. With the consent of his widow decided to become a museum as a tribute to the universal narrator felt so much love for the island.

Today there are thousands of visitors from all over the world that look to the world of late writer, because of what they keep their collections. In the aforementioned interview with Plimpton, the writer identified the farm as a great place to work. Somewhere there was added that his books, his pictures, his memories. Next to his bed single man, his wife slept on the opposite wing of the house is his typewriter, which offered some collectors for years to $ 50 000. The correspondence came home after the death of the owner remains on the bed, unopened, and a huge shoe are your shoes. Also appear Picasso ceramics and walls, posters of bullfights and the horns and the stuffed heads of animals killed in hunts. Finally, one can glimpse the writer's intimacy. An intimacy that always zealously protected. In the dining room where we always got one more to cover unexpected visitor, is a mosaic with the inscription: "No one comes here without being called?. As the writer complained much of how much touting its visitors, Miss Mary, his fourth wife, ordered the construction of three-story tower adjacent to the house.

The first floor would serve as home to more than 50 cats from the farm, the second would be kept fishing supplies and hunting the owner, and the third, having before his eyes a splendid panorama of the city, their study would . On this particular story has a pretty hilarious. Hemingway went one day to the tower supposed to write and remained there for 15 minutes, during which he strove in vain to build a sentence. He went down and never again used that room to work. He said he could not stand the loneliness of his new studio ... .. and continued writing in his room. I explained that thanks to his third wife is that Hemingway began to live on the farm of San Francisco de Paula, but it is curious to know that anything fruitful and enjoyable that it was actually the writer's relationship with the place, may not have ever materialized . The first time that Hemingway visited the land that his wife wished to be his, not like at all. Fell far short of Cojimar, where and anchored his boat, and the Floridita, another of his great discoveries habaneros.

By then very famous bar, Hemingway attended daily. There always spent hours sitting in the same place, on the far left of the bar and which has been immortalized for many years with a statue that is located precisely at the site he occupied. Since there still seems to consider thoughtfully the enjoyment by visitors of the site, your favorite cocktail The daiquiri. It is said that could take up to 15 overnight daiquiris, and not their usual version. But a version that it invented in accordance with Rivalaigua Constantine, the owner and founder of the Floridita. The classic daiquiri is a whipped mixture of rum, lemon and sugar over crushed ice to which is added sometimes a stroke of maraschino. For Hemingway, as would the Colombian Gabriel García Márquez another Nobel prize for literature, invented the Daiquiri wild. The American sent to suppress the sugar mixture and fold the amounts of rum and crushed ice. Thus arose the pope? S Daiquiri. Such was his love of cocktail to retreat to Finca Vigia, is almost always seen carrying in a thermos or a large glass, as he said ... ..? Daiquiri of the way?.

Knowing all this is easy to understand the motives that made him declare in relation to Cuba on another occasion. "I love this country and I feel at home, where a man feels at home, apart from the birthplace, this is the place to which it was intended?.