Ernest Hemingway, one of the most important novelists worldwide and particularly beloved in Cuba —where he lived for several decades—, returned to the island this weekend... multiplied by 18.

Almost twenty doubles of the “papa,” as the writer was popularly known on the island, arrived in Havana for a two-day cultural tour of the most representative places in Hemingway's history.

Dressed in Bermuda shorts, high socks, sandals and colorful tropical shirts, with thick white beards framing a round, ruddy face, the 18 Americans were greeted with some applause, The Associated Press witnessed.

Residents and tourists watched them in amazement on Saturday afternoon at “El Floridita” Bar in Old Havana, where Hemingway used to go to drink one, or several, daiquiris in the middle of the last century.

Hours earlier, the group visited Finca Vigía where they sponsored a baseball game with local children, a tradition the writer himself started when he moved to that residence located on the outskirts of Havana, and where he lived until 1960.

“Hemingway started this in 1939 for his son Gregory, who was called Gigi. “He went out into the neighborhood and got the kids excited to play baseball with his son and the tradition continued,” one of the visitors, who identified himself as Papa Joe Maxy, who has been a member of the Hemingway Look-Alike Society since 2019, told the AP.

The group also usually brings medicine, gifts and toys for the young people of the municipality of San Francisco de Paula, where Finca Vigía is located.

The delegation is part of the society that usually organizes trips of this sort every year with members from different parts of the United States, but mostly residents of Florida, the visitors said.

Before moving to Finca Vigía in 1939, the writer lived from 1932 at the Hotel Ambos Mundos in Old Havana, located a few blocks from El Floridita and Bodeguita del Medio, contributing to his fame. The hotel, of course, housed the 18 Hemingway look-alikes this weekend.

One of Hemingway's most popular novels was The Old Man and the Sea, which tells the story of an old fisherman from the nearby town of Cojimar. The work, a vivid metaphor for man's struggle against adversity, reached Hollywood screens in 1958.

Hemingway won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954 and dedicated the award to Cuba and its patron saint, the Virgin of Charity.

Cuba and the United States are stalled in a tense relationship and Washington maintains intense sanctions against the island and prohibits its citizens from visiting the island - unless they have special permits - so exchanges are rare despite the geographic proximity.

Translated by Amilkal Labañino / CubaSí Translation Staff