Page 120 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - Cuba

118  HA V ANA AREA B Y AREA

Ernest Hemingway in Cuba

The great American author fell in love with Cuba on his first visit in 1932, attracted
initially by the marlin fishing. It was not until 1939, however, that Hemingway decided
to move to the island, initially settling down in the Ambos Mundos hotel in Old Havana
(see p256). Having decided to stay on, he found a quiet villa outside the city in which to
write, Finca La Vigía, where he lived at first with journalist Martha Gellhorn (whom he
married in 1940). His bond with Cuba lasted 20 years, through the Batista period and
the beginning of the Revolution, and longer, in fact, than his relationship with Martha
Gellhorn. Hemingway’s last wife, Mary Welsh (married in 1946), joined the writer in Cuba
and lived with him at Finca La Vigía. The villa is now a museum (p119). He eventually
returned to the US in 1960, a year before his suicide.

Hemingway wrote his most famous novels in Cuba.
He was at Finca La Vigía in 1954 when he found out that
A lover of cocktails, Hemingway was he had received the Nobel Prize. “This prize belongs to
a regular at La Bodeguita del Medio Cuba, since my works were created and conceived in
(see p69) and El Floridita (see p76). Cuba, with the inhabitants of Cojímar, of which I am a
Both bars were a stone’s throw from citizen.” With these words, Hemingway placed the prize
his room on the fifth floor of the at the foot of the Virgen del Cobre (see p225).
Ambos Mundos Hotel. The writer
helped to invent the daiquirí.
Ernest
The Sea and Fishing Hemingway
Hemingway loved the sea and was
passionate about swordfish and Martha
Gellhorn
marlin fishing. He practised the
sport with great commitment and
courage – not on a luxury yacht, but
on a small fishing boat, the famous
Pilar – together with a fisherman,
Gregorio Fuentes, who also became a
good friend. The boat was moored at
the picturesque village of Cojímar.

Gregorio Fuentes

A marlin fishing
tournament is held
every year at the
Hemingway Marina.

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