Ernest Hemingway On Cuba
Cubans still refer to the writer Ernest Hemingway as “Papรก” after spending more than 20 years in the country. “The Old Man and the Sea,” one of his stories, is set in a little fishing community outside Havana. The bay is becoming a popular tourist destination.
“The Old Man and the Sea”
“The Old Man and the Sea” is a story about an elderly man and his relationship with the sea.
Ernest Hemingway penned a story about Santiago, a hapless fisherman who returns from fishing for 84 days without catching anything in the early 1950s. When he eventually snags a massive swordfish, the battle begins.
However, Santiago is limited to defending the bones from sharks on the trip to the harbor. The faith of the fisherman carries the fight. “You can be destroyed, but you can’t give up,” Hemingway’s mentality is said to be summed up in this phrase.
In 1954, the Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to the writer for his proclamation of love for fishermen and the sea. Residents still relate how, after winning the Nobel Prize, Hemingway dragged virtually the entire village with him when he was welcomed by the owner of Cuba’s largest brewery.
Cojรญmar today
The fisherman mock the hapless Santiago in the story for his failed fishing, and the tavern “La Terraza” has been transformed into a popular tourist destination. Fidel Castro had witnessed how run-down the tavern “La Terraza” was on a visit in 1970. The “maximo lder” had the site restored out of respect for his favorite writer. Only the images on the walls remain to remind us of the past.
Professional fishing has now disappeared in Cojmar. A modest “Hemingway Park” celebrates the American beside the Hemingway bust on the port promenade. “To the immortal author of ‘The Old Man and the Sea,’ which was inaugurated on his 63rd birthday, July 21, 1962. In honor of the deceased. Cojmar’s residents “.. Hemingway was born a year earlier, thus the inscription isn’t totally accurate.
Ernest Hemingway and the Cuban Revolution
Hemingway first visited Cuba in 1928 as a deep-sea fisherman, and from 1932 he returned on a regular basis to fish off the coast of Havana. He moved to Cuba permanently in 1939. He spent a year in the hotel “Ambos Mundos,” where he penned “To Whom the Hour Tolls,” an epic about the Spanish Civil War.
Hemingway purchased the finca “La Viga” in San Francisco de Paula in 1940 because his third wife got bored of being in hotels. The house is still visible from the street now. The “Bodeguita del Medio” in Havana’s old town is supposed to have been his favorite tavern.
This is also where he ordered his mojito, as evidenced by a sign above the bar with his saying: “My Mojito in La Bodeguita, my Daiquiri in El Floridita” – “My Mojito in La Bodeguita, my Daiquiri in El Floridita.”
The restaurant “Floridita” is now one of Hemingway’s pilgrimage locations. Ernest Hemingway and his fourth wife, Mary, left Cuba for good in 1960, a year before his death.