Finca Vigía, Literary museum in San Francisco de Paula, Cuba.
Finca Vigía is a two-story white mansion in the suburb of San Francisco de Paula southeast of Havana that now serves as a literary museum. The house preserves the writer's personal library with thousands of books, hunting trophies, and original furnishings from the mid-20th century.
The American author purchased the property in 1940 with earnings from his novel and lived there for two decades until he left Cuba for good. During this period he composed several major works and received the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Many pieces of furniture and personal items remain exactly where Hemingway left them when he departed the house for the last time. His workspace is arranged just as he used it daily, giving a direct sense of his life in Cuba.
Visitors can view the interior rooms only through open windows and doors, as direct access is not permitted to protect the collection. The grounds also include a garden and a small tower that can be explored on foot.
Mary Hemingway had a square 12-metre tower built against the terrace in 1946 so her husband could write in seclusion, but he kept to his bedroom desk and the tower was handed over to the cats. By 1943 the finca held 11 cats, among them the Cuban kittens Good Will and Boise, whose habits Hemingway wrote about.
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