havana, september 15 : Ernest Hemingway wrote his The Old Man and the Sea in Havana, winning the Pulitzer (1953) for it. The Nobel Prize followed soon after, in 1954. Even today, there are quite a few men here, by the sea; some old and some young. Some with fishing lines, some simply watching the catch, others more active, and some simply not making it.
Having spent 20 years or so of his adult life here, Hemingway spent a lot of time in old Havana, now a walkway, in the pub, La Bodeguita Del Medio. Opened in 1942, and now maintained and managed by Grand Carribe, a Government tourism company, they have carefully preserved a scrawl by Hemingway on the wall it goes, “My Mohito in La Bodeguita, My Daiquiri in El Floridita.” The walls are full of writing, graffiti, and proprietors go in for a whitewash every five years, preserving of course, signatures of any interesting people who may have bothered to write on the wall.
Hemingway patronised this pub, as did several other writers and bohemians of the period, as it was close to a prominent printing press of the time (now moved to another venue). Writers and aspirants of the time waited here, Mohitos and Daiquiris — popular cocktails flowed, and Hemingway is said to have sipped away in the corner, to your right, just as you enter — a place where he could be as close to the barman as possible, and yet get a glimpse of what was going on the little road outside.
Joel, a post-graduate in English Literature and Grammar finished his Master’s in 1991 from Havana University. He now works at the La Bodeguita, and says “it is a very enjoyable job.” Having read The Old Man and the Sea and For Whom the Bells Toll, he says he is attached to this little pub. Catching him at a time when several people are dancing, swaying to a live guitar and a drum two-some is difficult, but he manages to make some time. He says “people here left notes for their friends, fixing up meeting times in those days, as they had a problem exactly saying which La Bodeguita, the reference, ‘medio’ was added to the name of the pub, ‘medio’ meaning middle — middle of the printing press and the start of the road here, so it became, ‘La Bodeguita Del Medio.”
