Cuba puts Papa Hemingway back on tourist trail

The Sunday Times August 20, 2006

Cuba puts Papa Hemingway back on tourist trail

Matthew Campbell, San Francisco De Paula, Cuba
FORGET about Che Guevara, mojitos and palm-fringed beaches. Cuba's
latest efforts to woo tourists are focusing on the pre-revolutionary
epoch when American mobsters carved up Havana and Ernest Hemingway, the
novelist, held rum-soaked parties up on the hill.

In what seems an unlikely undertaking for one of the world's last
communist strongholds, Cuba is sinking more than £2.5m into restoring
the hilltop villa overlooking Havana where "Papa"Hemingway lived, wrote
and caroused from 1939 to 1960.

The ailing Fidel Castro, who has handed power to his younger brother
while he convalesces from abdominal surgery, might not approve of such
frivolity. But as part of its effort to court hard currency tourists,
the government is also playing up the Caribbean country's past as a
haven for mafia mobsters.

Guests checking in at the Nacional hotel, which in its heyday was home
to crime bosses such as Meyer Lansky and Al Capone, are invited to tour
"the suites where the gangsters lived" and the cavernous room downstairs
in which they had dinner.

At Finca Vigia, the termite-ravaged villa where Hemingway lived, workmen
were replacing sagging ceiling beams and fixing a leaky roof last week.
Pilar, the 40ft boat he used for marlin fishing expeditions that
inspired The Old Man and the Sea, was also undergoing restoration.

Few things connected to Cuba, however, avoid being dragged into its
bitter political dispute with America. Anger has been provoked by
Washington's refusal to allow the Boston-based Hemingway Preservation
Foundation to commit funds to the restoration project.

Hemingway enthusiasts consider the house and contents to be an American
cultural gem, even though they are located on foreign soil. Washington
argued that contributing money would violate trade sanctions against
Cuba by helping to boost tourism and keep its communist regime in power.

"It is a great shame," said Miryorly Garcia Prieto, a Cuban guide
showing a visitor around the estate which has been opened as a museum.
"We are interested only in safeguarding Hemingway's heritage. We will do
the best job that we can, but obviously Cuba has limited resources."

Agreement has at least been reached between Cuba and Washington for
American experts to help to preserve a treasure trove of papers and
photographs which have been stored in the damp basement of the
white-walled villa.

The documents include early drafts of major works, a copy of the
screenplay for The Old Man and the Sea, letters to friends such as
Ingrid Bergman and recipes for the writer's favourite dishes.

Hemingway was initially attracted to Cuba by the excellent marlin
fishing in the Gulf Stream off the northern coast. He also came to
appreciate its cocktails — his favourites were daiquiris and mojitos —
and the gregarious nature of its people.

He bought the house on the hill for £13,000 in 1939 and it is considered
the place where he put down his deepest roots. Here Hemingway wrote some
of the classics of American literature, such as A Moveable Feast and
Islands in the Stream. He won the Nobel prize for The Old Man and the
Sea in 1954.

For an isolated, dictatorial regime that has been struggling to keep
communism afloat ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the
Hemingway connection is undoubtedly an asset. Tourists flock to El
Floridita, his favourite watering hole in Havana, to be photographed
next to the life-size statue of him propping up one end of the bar.

They have made a shrine of his favourite table at La Terraza restaurant
in the port from which he would set off fishing with Gregorio Fuentes,
his first mate, aboard the Pilar.

In Hemingway the Cuban government saw a man of the people. "He would
often invite people from the village to his parties," said Garcia
Prieto. "They would all come up here," she added, gesturing to the
terrace around the empty swimming pool. "Peasants, farmers, fishermen,
he didn't care about people's background."

Hemingway travelled to Europe and then to America in 1960 and was
devastated by the US-backed invasion at the Bay of Pigs in 1961: he was
unable to return to the home he loved. Three months later, after a long
struggle with alcoholism and depression, he committed suicide at the age
of 61.

His memory lives on in Cuba. "He left a big mark," Garcia Prieto said.
"We are all very proud of him."

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