Ernesto
The Untold Story of Hemingway in Revolutionary Cuba
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4.5 • 2 Ratings
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
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.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Feldman, who has taught writing at the University of Maryland, focuses on Hemingway's decades-long ties to Cuba and its people in his ambitious but rambling debut. First arriving in 1928, Hemingway and second wife Pauline originally stayed only two days, but the visit began a lifelong connection. From The Old Man and the Sea to Islands in the Stream, the country provided Hemingway with material and was where he lived, on and off, for more than 30 years. Along with Hemingway's troubled life, multiple marriages, and affairs, Feldman details Cuba's rich history and political strife. Feldman's two years at Havana's Hemingway Museum and Library as the first North American allowed to study in residence there is noticeable in his detailed and numerous footnotes. However, long, convoluted sentences may make readers wish that Feldman were as enamored of Hemingway's minimalist writing style as of the man. Meanwhile, Feldman's common use of first rather than last names conveys an unearned familiarity with Hemingway and such other famous figures as Fidel Castro, and, despite the abundant citations, many passages give unsupported, detailed descriptions of Hemingway and others' perspectives more reminiscent of fiction than biography. This labor of love provides one more, potentially useful, reference for future students of Hemingway, but it's not the definitive look at this aspect of his life. Deborah Ritchken, Marsal Lyon.
