Hemingway in Havana
Ernst Hemingway is a well known author and journalist who had a large influence on literature during the 20th century. Many of his novels, including A Farwell to Arms, For Whom the Bells Toll and The Old Man and the Sea, are considered classics. For approximately 20 years Hemingway lived in Havana, Cuba where he wrote a number of his novels. Hemingway’s homestead, Finca Vigia, can still be viewed as it was during his life – a real treat for Hemingway bookworms.
Hemingway originally rented the house after his marriage to his third wife, Martha Gellhorn as she refused to live in the small hotel room he had been staying in. It was at Finca Vigia that Hemingway wrote For Whom the Bell Tolls and once he received the royalties from the novel he purchased the property.
Once his marriage with Martha Gellhorn fell apart after Hemingway’s infatuation with Mary Welsh, a Time magazine correspondent he returned to Cuba and married Mary, his fourth and final wife. In the following years the Hemingway family suffered a number of accidents including a car accident, two consecutive plane crashes and a bushfire that left Hemingway with a number of injuries: two cracked disks, kidney and liver rupture, a dislocated shoulder and a broken skull.
As depression and illness overtook him Hemingway moved back to his hometown in Iadho and could not return to Cuba due to the falling out between the Cuban and US governments. In the following year Hemingway committed suicide and Mary deeded the home, including furnishing and an extensive library, to the Cuban government. The house was restored by the Cuban government and was reopened to tourists back in 2007.
Photo courtesy of Catharine B.
