Granddaughter: Cubans revere Hemingway
August 2, 1997
Web posted at: 4:41 p.m. EDT (2041 GMT)COJIMAR, Cuba (CNN) -- Actress Mariel Hemingway, the granddaughter of the renowned American author Ernest Hemingway, was awed when she first arrived in Cuba. It seemed wherever she went, she saw statues or photographs of her grandfather.
"Everywhere you looked there's Che (Guevara) and Fidel (Castro) and my grandfather," she said. "I mean it seems to be the three real major icons of this country."
In the quiet fishing town of Cojimar, a bust of the famous author faces the sea he loved so much. Nearby, at the La Terraza restaurant, pictures of Hemingway adorn the wall. A marina also is named after the author.
Mariel Hemingway 
119K/10 sec. AIFF or WAV sound Gregorio Fuentes bubbles with enthusiasm when Hemingway is mentioned. His voice picks up a notch and his smile widens.
Fuentes, 100, was Hemingway's long-time friend and boat captain. The boat, named The Pilar, now sits at Hemingway's villa turned museum in Cojimar, an isolated fishing community that was a favorite haunt of Hemingway's where he drank, fished and told stories.
Hemingway's influence"I have never seen a man with the same heart as this man," Fuentes said, pointing to a picture of the author. Fuentes added that he was with Hemingway when he came up with the title for his famous novel, "The Old Man and the Sea."
In Old Havana, Hemingway would listen to music at the Floridita Restaurant, joined sometimes by celebrities like Spencer Tracy. (who played the title role in the 1958 movie, "The Old Man and the Sea.") But so too, he was never far from his fishermen friends of Cohimar.
Miami Bureau Chief John Zarrella contributed to this report.
Related sites:
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- The Papa Page
- The University of Florida's Ernest M. Hemingway Home Page
- Ernest Hemingway in Oak Park
- CubaWeb
- Latin World - Cuba
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