At a time when our last trip is beginning to date and the next one is unfortunately no longer on the agenda, a few great classics fortunately allow us to travel from his sofa. The opportunity to dust off the books in his library or to order some ebooks on the Internet to pass the time while respecting the confinement. Le Petit Futé therefore offers you a dive into the works of authors who have made us travel. After following in the footsteps of the late Albert Uderzo in Gaul, as in the rest of the world, accompanying Jules Verne in his novels of anticipation to the four corners of the planet (and even beyond), we now give way to the third author in our series: Ernest Hemingway.
The United States, birthplace of the writer
It is obviously in the United States that the famous American author spent the most time. In his detective novel In Have or Have Not (1937), we follow the story of Harry Morgan, an American living in Key West, Florida. A place very dear to the heart of Ernest Hemingway, whom he describes in In Have or Not, since the Nobel Prize winner for literature lived there for thirty years. His splendid Florida house, practically the only one built in the Key West tradition (stone foundation and basement), dates from 1851. Its swimming pool, the first in the city, built in the late 1930s, cost the trifle of US$ 20,000 at the time. It was here that Hemingway wrote For Whom the Bell Tolls, The Green Hills of Africa, The Fifth Column, The Snows of Kilimanjaro, and The Short and Happy Life of Francis Macomber. At least that's what they say. The house belonged to the writer from 1931 to 1961 and today it has become a museum retracing Hemingway's rich career. Inside and outside, everything has remained intact and in accordance with the time he lived there. It is therefore imbued with his spectrum and that of his four wives. The visit focuses essentially on him, his habits, his writings, his stories of women, little things that become crisp anecdotes..
And on the day that flights are scheduled to take off again for the United States, it will also be interesting to visit the author's birthplace west of Chicago. For the immense Hemingway was born on July 21, 1899 in Oak Park. So the town could not miss the opportunity to celebrate his brilliant career. The visit is very complete, since it takes in two sites: the house in which he lived the first six years of his life and a museum that retraces his entire life. The museum is very complete, and tells the story of his childhood in Oak Park, his years of study, his years of service in Italy during the First World War, his work as a journalist and his involvement in the Spanish Civil War, and then as a war correspondent during the Second World War....
In short, unmissable places in a country that also saw the writer die, since Hemingway committed suicide in Ketchum, Idaho, a small village in the heart of the Rocky Mountains, where he lived the last two years of his life (from 1959 to 1961).
Cuba, exile
But reading or rereading Hemingway also means strolling through the colourful streets of Havana, the capital of Cuba, where he lived in the 1950s. Indeed, it was on the Caribbean island that he wrote The Old Man and the Sea in 1951. A short novel, and his major work, which will definitively pass Hemingway down to posterity, since it was thanks to him that he won the Pullitzer Prize in 1953 and the Nobel Prize for Literature the following year. After re-reading the story of Santiago, a poor fisherman struggling with a gigantic marlin, we can (re)dive into Drifting Islands, a posthumous work that takes us on a journey between Bimini, a small atoll in the Bahamas, and Cuba. In Cuba, the author cites the bar El Floridita, one of his favourite addresses, where he liked to go and drink a sugar-free daiquiri with Ava Gardner, Gary Cooper or Ingrid Bergman. Today, you can still sip this cocktail next to a statue of the writer. We can also visit the house where Hemingway wrote The Old Man and the Sea in San Francisco De Paula, on the outskirts of the Cuban capital
In Europe, at the time of the World Wars
An avid traveller, Ernest Hemingway has also travelled throughout the Old Continent. During the First World War, the writer was incorporated into the Italian Red Cross. He joined the boot after having crossed the Atlantic Ocean, landed in Bordeaux and set off for Milan. Eventually wounded by a bullet, he will be hospitalized in the Lombard city and fall in love with an American nurse who will inspire Catherine Barkley in Farewell to Arms. Published in 1929, this autobiographical novel, which takes place during the conflict, is set in northern Italy and Slovenia. Italy will also be in the spotlight in Beyond the River and Under the Trees, published in 1950, which plunges us into the enchanting world of Venice, between the Hotel Gritti, the Cipriani and Harry's Bar.
Ernest Hemingway then took his notebooks around France and settled in Paris in 1921. In his autobiographical story Paris est une fête (published posthumously in 1964), he recounts his life in Paris in the 1920s. From the Deux-Magots in Saint-Germain-des-Prés to La Closerie des Lilas in Montparnasse, via Rue des Saints-Pères and Rue Mouffetard, the writer makes a true declaration of love to the French capital. Paris is also widely evoked in Le soleil se lève aussi en 1926. This novel features Jack Barnes, a veteran of the First World War, who travelled through Paris by night, visiting the férias de San Fermin in Pamplona, the capital of Navarre in Spain, before landing in Madrid. The city of Pamplona is also mentioned in Death in the Afternoon in 1932. In this autobiographical account, Hemingway tells of his passion for bullfighting, which was elevated to the status of a religious ceremony. Finally, Spain is again discussed in For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940), largely inspired by his experience as a journalist working with Spanish troops during the Civil War, particularly during the Segovian offensive in Castile.
Ernest Hemingway will also go to the ends of Europe as a journalist with the Greek troops and he will testify to the violence of the confrontation at Inönü in Anatolia during the Greek-Turkish war.
East Africa, crashes and safaris
Africa will also strongly mark the life of the famous American writer. East Africa more precisely since the safaris undertaken by Hemingway inspired him to The Green Hills of Africa, published in 1935. This autobiographical tale takes place in southern Kenya during a big game hunt among the Masai and in northern Tanzania (Tanganyika at the time) around Lake Manyara, about a hundred kilometres from Arusha.
This corner of Africa is also the setting for The Truth in the Light of Dawn where the author lands in Uganda. It is in this posthumous book that the two plane crashes he experienced are evoked. In January 1954, accompanied by his fourth wife, Mary, the famous Hemingway flew over East Africa and headed for Murchison Falls. The plane, trying to dodge a flight of birds, hit an old telegraph line, forcing it to make a forced landing not far from the Victoria Nile. The landing gear was damaged and the couple and the pilot spent the night beside the aircraft. Hemingway later wrote, "the elephants did not seem to agree and there were many crocodiles in the river that seemed to be in a bad mood. The next day, Hemingway, his wife and the pilot, having migrated to the river bank, were spotted by tourists on their way to the famous cataract. They can thus go to Butiaba, on Lake Albert. But on takeoff, bound for Entebbe, then capital of the protectorate, their plane falls into an agave field and catches fire. A police car finally takes the three survivors to the Masindi hospital. Word of Hemingway's death spreads. Reporters of all nationalities converge on Uganda and find the three characters recovering from their injuries. A life decidedly out of the ordinary. To be (re)discovered urgently
