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 have been presented as a serial in this space. Scroll down for previous installments.
FINAL DAYS: June 19 presentations focus more on the writer’s early life. Sandy Spanier, researcher and professor at Pennsylvania State University, talks about her work in collecting Hemingway’s letters. She is in the last stages of editing the first volume, which comprises his early letters. She comments that Hemingway’s correspondence list reads like Who’s Who, stating that the first volume will contain the letters he wrote to Ezra Pound, Gary Cooper, Picasso, Archibald Mac Leisch as well as to his wives and children. Sandy anticipates the letters will fill sixteen volumes and that the project, authorized by Patrick Hemingway, will take fifteen years.
My presentation focuses on the “The Early Influences (1899-1917) Impacting Hemingway’s Attitude toward Death.” I discuss the influences of Ernest’s two grandfathers and his father and mother and show photos of Hemingway as a baby, a child, and a high school student. The photos have not been seen by most of the audience and are well received. Follow-up interviews and videos are then completed by international press services and a local documentary film-maker.
After Alyson Gills’ presentation about of the transformation of the Hemingway-Pfeiffer Museum to a virtual 3D tour that can be taken via computer, our group heads to Finia Vigia. There we watch a baseball game, which recreates the team Hemingway financed and trained during his time at Finca Vigia. That evening I also have the opportunity to view Hemingway’s fishing boat, The Pilar, and his 1955 Chrysler convertible.
As I return to Chicago on June 20, I reflect on the many opportunities provided by the Coloquium to learn about the life, the writing and the personal artifacts of Ernest Hemingway. I now have a deeper appreciation of the wealth of information and resources which the Hemingway Foundation of Oak Park preserves and maintains. Our Foundation’s buildings and artifacts are valuable resources to scholars around the world, and the importance of our mission is underscored by my trip to Cuba and the worldwide interest in his life and writing.
