Nobel Prize-winning author Ernest Hemingway’s artifacts from Cuba now available at JFK Library

BOSTON – Bar bills, personal notes, telegrams and even recipes from Nobel Prize-winning author Ernest Hemingway are available for the first time at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum.

The 2,500 digitally scanned materials were housed at Hemingway’s former Cuban estate, called the Finca Vigía, where he lived for 21 years. He died in 1961.

This material reflects Hemingway’s everyday life in Cuba, said Susan Wrynn, an Ernest Hemingway curator at the Kennedy Library.

“It’s a personal peek into his life — it’s just wonderful,” Wrynn said.

This is the first time the material is available for examination by researchers in the United States. These artifacts are not open to the public.

The collection includes car insurance for a 1941 Plymouth station wagon, a license to carry arms in Cuba, bull fighting tickets and even a recipe from his fourth wife, Mary Hemingway, for “Papa’s Favorite Hamburger.”

There is also a telegram from Dr. Anders Osterling of the Swedish Academy telling Ernest Hemingway that he has been awarded the 1954 Nobel Prize for Literature. A first wave of material was released to the library in 2008.

Hemingway’s most famous works including “For Whom the Bell Tolls” and “The Old Man and the Sea” were written at the Cuban residence.

The collection was made available through the efforts of the U.S. Finca Vigía Foundation under an agreement with the Cuban Council of National Heritage.

The Kennedy Library has the world’s largest collection of Hemingway’s life and work, containing 90 per cent of his manuscript material.