Cuba and the United States signed a cultural cooperation agreement on Monday to preserve the archives of US novelist Ernest Hemingway, who lived on the island for more than 20 years.
The agreement was signed in the gardens of Finca Vigia, the airy white house outside Havana where the writer lived and wrote several of his masterpieces.
President Fidel Castro, members of Hemingway’s family and a delegation from the northeastern US state of Massachusetts, led by Democratic Representative James McGovern, were present for the signing.
The accord addresses the preservation, classification and archiving of thousands of documents, letters, photographs and manuscripts stored in the home of the adventurous author who won the 1954 Nobel Prize for Literature.
US researchers could not access these materials until now. Cuba and the United States have not had full diplomatic relations for more than 40 years, and they maintain only Interests Sections in each other’s capitals.
The original documents — including drafts of ”For Whom the Bell Tolls,” ”The Old Man and the Sea” and other Hemingway works — will remain in Cuba, while digital and microfilm versions will be housed in the John F. Kennedy Library in Massachusetts.
”Cubans have taken care of this collection lovingly for many, many years,” said McGovern, adding that
”there is a need for additional resources to preserve this.”
Hemingway’s widow, Mary, gave Finca Vigia to the Cuban
government upon his death in 1961, after which it became a museum. – Sapa-AFP