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TLS in Spanish, signed “Mister Papa,” two pages, 8 x 10, October 14, 1953. Addressed from Africa and sent to Roberto Herrera Sotolongo, Hemingway's secretary and photographer in Cuba, the letter constitutes a very lively testimony to his second Kenyan safari (1953-1954) during which the aging writer sought to rediscover the sensations that, 20 years earlier, had inspired masterpieces such as The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber and The Snows of Kilimanjaro. In part: “Dear and much appreciated Monstruo: I passed through Nairobi yesterday, finished the first preparations for the safari and received your letter with the checks for the guys including the mysterious check from Canada (from one of my illegitimate children?) and the important dividend check for Miss Mary. I think it might be dangerous to cash the one from Canada. Is it certified? Maybe it's the eye of Moscow or the big whore. Speaking of which, what's the news from Planet Putareal? Tell me about Floridita and give my greetings and my most sincere love to Leo and my hello to everyone in the bar and to Alvarez…The great Mayito is in Tanganyika these days and will join us next week at Patricio's estate. Mayito is known around here as the best Cuban shot. He kills more people than typhus or Pepe Quintanilla. He is a very good shot and shoots faster than his shadow.”
Hemingway asks him to contact “the Illustrious Don Andres” and read him what he wrote to him because he does not have his contact information and gets up every day at 4 a.m., walking 10 to 15 miles a day, so that by evening he is dead and unable to sign checks. But he still dragged two 192 kg lions for almost two thousand meters. “After writing to you last time, Theisen and I took some photographs that promise to be magnificent. Me very close to a couple of superb rhinoceroses, and photographs of very beautiful buffalo. There is also an impala that jumped 28 feet to land inside the jeep and "poor dad" who is holding the beast by the scruff of the neck; Theisen took it from the outside with his flash at 5000th of a second (I don't remember the number). If successful, it will be one of the best action photos of the year.” He notes that he and Mary have had trouble with buffalo and lions, but it's better to rely on the pictures than to try to convince “the sovereign public with the fucking words.”
“We formed a Masai gang, real ‘balls,’ it's called Los Honest Ernie's. Tomorrow morning, I have to go, at the request of the Game Department, to kill a very large elephant, a sort of vendetta of the employees of the ‘Kenia marble quarries.’ Hemingway thanks him for his diligence regarding taxes and sends him a check for $400 with instructions to settle various small debts. “Please write to Coats and Dorsey, tell them I am spending my time outside civilization and can't deal with the insurance papers…I spent two hours in Nairobi signing everything. What you mustn't tell them is that I met Shevlin at the New Stanley and we got drunk together. As he is going to the Rio Tana this morning for a big elephant, I lend him my gun…If Mr. Mayito continues not to write to his family, tell them that his health is resplendent, his humor is good, and his luck too. He is very popular here, as everywhere else, and he is already something of a legend for his gallantry, his ‘cojones’ and his way of handling the gun. He speaks African dialects as if he were born on the banks of the Guaso Nyieri.” Hemingway adds a brief handwritten postscript: “Many blessings and memories of Mary. It's all tan, healthy and content.” In fine condition. Accompanied by the original mailing envelope, annotated vertically on the front in Hemingway’s hand: “Answered, Enclosed check for $400 for salary and expenses, cables - mail etc.”
An important letter from Hemingway dating to a brief two-year window that proved vital to both his health and legacy. A month before typing this letter, Hemingway’s classic The Old Man and the Sea was published to international acclaim, and the book’s widespread influence was a chief cause for his back-to-back reception of two of literature’s most prestigious awards: the Pulitzer and the Nobel Prize. Despite the success, the author struggled with his health and alcoholic reliance, and two near-fatal plane crashes during his African expedition in January 1954 left Hemingway with injuries that would plague him for the rest of his life.
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