Press Releases

New Hemingway Papers Released by U.S. Finca Vigía Foundation
Documents Paint Fuller Picture of Hemingway and his Life in Cuba

Washington, DC…. Today, at a press conference to commemorate the 60^th anniversary of the award of the Pulitzer Prize in fiction to Ernest Hemingway, the U.S. Finca Vigía Foundation (FVF), under an agreement with the Cuban Council of National Heritage, announced that it has supported the digitization of 2,000 new images of materials relating to Hemingway. This material, which includes letters, passports from 1937 and 1945, telegrams, household accounts, grocery orders and a notebook of hurricane observations among other items, is all currently housed at Hemingway's former Cuban estate. These papers have not been seen before outside of Cuba and will be available for research at the John F. Kennedy Library later this year, joining its existing Hemingway collection. Under a unique agreement between the Cuban government and the US non-governmental Finca Vigía Foundation, irreplaceable Hemingway documents are being conserved and shared between the two countries.

In making the announcement, U.S. Congressman Jim McGovern, who was instrumental in the founding of the Finca Vigía Foundation said, -This extraordinary collaboration has for over a decade demonstrated the benefits of a mature, respectful and productive relationship between Cubans and Americans. The Finca Vigía Foundation and its partners have done incredible work in preserving Ernest Hemingway's legacy for future generations of Americans, Cubans and scholars around the world. It is my hope that this project can serve as a model for future collaborations and that we can leave the stale politics and rhetoric of the Cold War behind.-

Dr. Jenny Phillips, Co-Founder of the Finca VigíaFoundation and granddaughter of Maxwell Perkins, Hemingway's editor and close friend said, "Ten years ago, an incredible breakthrough occurred when our small foundation was able to bring together Cuba and the U.S. to preserve a shared literary heritage, the legacy of Ernest Hemingway in Cuba. Despite a longstanding impasse between the two countries, we have been able to rise above politics and persist at this purely cultural project. And we are still at it with this fresh new wave of document images which just arrived from Cuba and are headed for the Hemingway collection at the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston".

Highlights of the opening include:

• A 1952 speech that Hemingway wrote in Spanish, accepting a medal for -The Old Man and the Sea- in the name of all the fishermen of northern Cuba;
• Affectionate notes to his wife Mary;
• A letter to Ingrid Bergman expressing his wish for her to play Maria in the film -For Whom the Bell Tolls-;
• Letter to Hemingway from critic Malcolm Cowley regarding "The Old Man and the Sea";
• Hemingway passports, including one issued in 1937 that tracks his movements as he covered the Spanish Civil War;
• A notebook of his observations of hurricane movements;
• Household bills, lists of provisions stocked for his fishing boat Pilar, gourmet grocery orders;
• Insurance policies listing the make and model of all of Hemingway's cars in Cuba;
• Instructions to the Finca staff as to what to plant in the garden and how to care for Hemingway's favorite cats;
• Contract and specifications for the tower constructed at the Finca in 1947.

Among the thousands of pages that were opened today, several key documents shed light on Ernest Hemingway's complex character. Hemingway scholar Dr. Sandra Spanier, General Editor of the Hemingway Letters Project and Professor of English, Penn State University, said "This new trove of materials will be tremendously exciting to Hemingway scholars and aficionados. This is the first time that these documents have been seen outside of Finca Vigía. They afford fresh insights into Hemingway's relationships with friends, family, and other writers, and what his celebrity status entailed. We will also be able to gain a richer understanding of Hemingway's activities and lifestyle during the crucial decades that he spent in Cuba."

This release is the second group of material that has been digitized and opened to the public. The first opening, in 2008 was comprised of 3,000 images of documents. Digitized copies from the first opening are available at the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston, MA. The Kennedy library has the largest collection of original Hemingway materials. In commenting on the new addition to the collection, Tom Putnam, Director of the Library said, "I want to thank the Finca Vigía Foundation for their persistence in ensuring that these valuable documents are preserved for scholars and the American public. We are very pleased that this new addition will become part of our extensive Hemingway collection at the Library and look forward to making them available to the public later this year."

Ernest Hemingway wrote many of his most famous works at Finca Vigía, his Cuban residence. For Whom the Bell Tolls, Across the River and Into the Trees, The Old Man and the Sea, and the manuscripts published posthumously, including AMoveable Feast, Islands in the Stream, The Dangerous Summer, The Garden of Eden, and True at First Light were all written in Cuba where he lived from 1939 to 1960. After Hemingway's death in 1961, his widow, Mary, was allowed to remove the bulk of his papers from the Finca. They were eventually given to the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston, MA. However, thousands of documents remained at Hemingway's house in the outskirts of Havana. Over the next forty years, the Finca and its irreplaceable collection fell into disrepair. Photographs, original manuscripts and galleys of his stories and novels, correspondence and journals, and a personal library of almost nine thousand volumes - many with Hemingway's notes in the margins -- were in danger of destruction from heat, humidity, pests, mold, and the sheer passage oftime. The Cubans did not have the resources to conserve their treasure.

In 2002 Dr. Phillips became aware of the thousands of irreplaceable documents in need of conservation at Finca Vigía. With the assistance of Congressman James McGovern and the Cuban Ministry of Culture, Dr. Phillips and her husband, Frank Phillips, State House bureau chief for the Boston Globe, established a US- based non-profit organization in 2004, the Finca Vigía Foundation, whose mission is to preserve Ernest Hemingway's legacy in Cuba. Through private donations, the Foundation has raised money to send conservators and archivists to Cuba to preserve these literary treasures. For more information about the foundation, visit: www.fincafoundation.org

Chris Goode, EMC Vice President and Chief Public Affairs Officer commented, "Historical artifacts housed in local museums and libraries around the world are slowly aging. Thanks to the Finca Vigía Foundation, the life of Ernest Hemingway is not only being preserved through digitization efforts but now these pieces of history are accessible for students, academics and others globally. EMC is proud to partner with the Foundation as part of our Information Heritage Initiative to ensure that these cultural treasures are around for future generations to not only learn from, but enjoy."

For information about the Finca Vigía Foundation and its mission, contact Mary Jo Adams, Executive Director, at 617-261-6680 or atexecdir@fincafoundation.org

For information about the opening of the papers, contact Rachel Flor at the Kennedy Library at 617-514-1662, Rachel.Flor@jfklfoundation.org.