With the presence of senior officers of the Ministry of Culture of Cuba and the U.S. Rep. James McGovern of Massachusetts a ceremony was held today to celebrate the eleventh anniversary of the agreements for the restoration of Finca Vigia , home of the Literature Nobel Prize Ernest Hemingway.
Organized by the National Council of Cultural Heritage and La Finca Vigia, between Monday and Tuesday several activities will be held in remembrance of the signing of this agreement between the council and the U.S. institution Finca Vigia Foundation , responsible for preserving the legacy of the writer.
The Congressman McGovern first thanked Fidel Castro for his contribution to this project and to all those who have collaborated in the past eleven years. “This project brings together our two peoples. There is no reason we don’t have relations between us. It is crucial that we work together. “
He also stated that Cuba and the United States share a common history, as in the case of Hemingway, who lived and worked in Cuba for decades. Between 1939 and 1960 he lived at Finca Vigia, a house built in 1886 by the Catalan architect Miguel Pascual y Baguer on a hill 11 km east of Havana. In December 1940 Hemingway married Martha Gellhorn and bought this property for 12 500 dollars.
The US Congressman traveled to Cuba to renew the Cooperation Agreement between the Latin American Program of the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) and the Cuban National Heritage Council, signed in November 2002 with the aim of preserving the legacy of the famous author of “The Old Man and the Sea”.