"This book tells us what Hemingway’s life was like during the years of 1939–1960 when Hemingway lived off and on in Cuba. Shrouded in mystery up until recently, Hemingway’s time in Cuba was thought to have been one of solitary existence—but Feldman’s book shows something entirely different. In Cuba, Hemingway enjoyed a vivid social life, connected to the people and the sea, a life rich with varying experiences, all of which influenced his writing. Though just over 500 pages, this book is engrossing and reads quickly. Not only will you get insight into one of the 20th Century’s greatest writers, you’ll get to experience Cuba through his eyes."
Publisher Melville House
Publication Date 2019
Section New Hardcover - Biography / All Staff Suggestions / Nonfiction Suggestions / Michael R.
Format Hardcover
ISBN 9781612196381
From the first North American scholar permitted to study in residence at Hemingway's beloved Cuban home comes a radically new understanding of “Papa’s” life in Cuba
Ernest Hemingway first landed in Cuba in 1928. In some ways he never left. After a decade of visiting regularly, he settled near Cojímar—a tiny fishing village east of Havana—and came to think of himself as Cuban. His daily life among the common people there taught him surprising lessons, and inspired the novel that would rescue his declining career. That book, The Old Man and the Sea, won him a Pulitzer and, one year later, a Nobel Prize. In a rare gesture of humility, Hemingway announced to the press that he accepted the coveted Nobel “as a citizen of Cojímar.”
In Ernesto, Andrew Feldman uses his unprecedented access to newly available archives to tell the full story of Hemingway’s self-professed Cuban-ness: his respect for Cojímar fishermen, his long-running affair with a Cuban lover, the warmth of his adoptive Cuban family, the strong influences on his work by Cuban writers, his connections to Cuban political figures and celebrities, his denunciation of American imperial ambitions, and his enthusiastic role in the revolution.
With a focus on the island’s violent political upheavals and tensions that pulled Hemingway between his birthplace and his adopted country, Feldman offers a new angle on our most influential literary figure. Far from being a post-success, pre-suicide exile, Hemingway’s decades in Cuba were the richest and most dramatic of his life, and a surprising instance in which the famous American bully sought redemption through his loyalty to the underdog.
