Hemingway’s Great-Grandson Meets Author’s Old Spanish Friend

Their get-together in Valencia’s Plaza del Ayuntamiento during the “mascleta” – a traditional fireworks show during Valencia’s elaborate Fallas festival – was “moving and fantastic,” in the words of Michael Hemingway, who said it had been an honor to speak with Cano, whom he called the “god of the bulls.”

Francisco Cano even shed a few tears during the meeting because it reminded him of his pal Ernest Hemingway, and said, “At night I still remember him because it’s one of those friendships you never forget. Better a friend than a relative.”

“I shot many photos of Hemingway and I gave away a lot of them,” said Cano, who keeps a large photo at home of himself hugging the writer in Pamplona’s Estafeta street.

Cano told Hemingway’s great-grandson about all their meals at Casa Salvador in Pamplona, and how in the morning, after the running of the bulls, they would go have a coffee in the Plaza Castillo.

After their conversation, the meeting’s organizers gave them each a Fallas smock, which neither hesitated to put on – Cano even draped Michael Hemingway in that garment typical of the Fallas, with the scarf included.

The photographer said that Ernest Hemingway “liked everything” about Spain, and told the writer’s great-grandson of their drinking sprees, the wine they guzzled and the flask of vodka he always carried with him.

“Having the last name of Hemingway isn’t easy, because people give it all that importance. But I am Michael and not Ernest, and, though I know his books and his writing, I’m not Ernest,” the writer’s great-grandson said.