On June 14, EHFOP Board Member Nancy W. Sindelar traveled to Cuba to present at the International Colloquium Ernest Hemingway in Havana. This gathering of literary professionals and enthusiasts from all over the world was a rare chance for an American Hemingway scholar to gain insight into the great writer’s life in Cuba. Sindelar blogged her experiences, which will be presented as a serial in this space. Check back tomorrow for the next installment!
DAY TWO: June 16 is the first day of the 13th Coloquium Ernest Hemingway. This international conference is attended by Hemingway scholars from around the world, and during the first day I meet people from Brazil, Argentina, Japan, Italy and Canada as well as from the U.S. and Cuba. The group is friendly and shares the common bond of interest in the life and work of Ernest Hemingway. The purpose of the conference is to promote the exchange of information among similar specialists and institutions related to the writer, commemorate the 5oth anniversary of his death, the 50th anniversary of handing over of Finca Vigia, Hemingway’s Cuban residence, to the Cuban people, and the 85th anniversary of the publication of The Sun Also Rises.
The conference is held at The Ambos Mundos Hotel in Old Havana. I am in room 503. Hemingway was in residence in Room 511 from 1928 to 1939 and received correspondence there from 1940 to 1952. Room 511 is now a small museum. His room is actually quite similar to mine, simple, with shuttered doors opening to a small balcony with views of Old Havana.
The morning and afternoon are filled with presentations by Hemingway scholars. The presentations are mostly given in Spanish with simultaneous translation into English. In the afternoon the group walks from the Ambos Mundos Hotel to some of Hemingway’s favorite places, including La Bodeguita del Medio and the Floridita Bar. In the evening, as a member of the board of The Ernest Hemingway Foundation of Oak Park, I am privileged to attend a small gathering of people who represent foundations and institutions that promote and preserve the life and work of Hemingway. My role is to present the mission of our Foundation, our preservation projects and educational events. The honor and responsibility of being caretakers of the Oak Park Hemingway treasures is both understood and respected by the group. As the evening progresses, it becomes clear that the foundations and institutions represented all share the same mission of preserving the life, the legend, the personal artifacts and written materials of the iconic writer; they also share the same burdens of funding and maintaining deteriorating buildings and materials.
Our evening meeting is held at Finca Vigia. Hemingway’s Cuban home is now a museum, but the public is only allowed to view the interior by looking through the open windows. I, however, receive a personal tour of the interior and see every room of the house filled with his belongings … so there’s his typewriter, his large and varied collection of books, his hunting trophies from Africa, his clothes, his shoes, and the bathroom scale on which he weighed himself daily.
