To our knowledge unpublished autograph letter signed by Ernest Hemingway to Roberto Herrera Sotolongo, 2 pages in blue ink on both sides of a sheet, and envelope postmarked September 19, 1953 with his autograph return address ("E. Hemingway...") on the back.
The letter begins in Spanish and continues in English, before ending with a few Spanish words signed "Mister Papa".
A magnificent letter from Hemingway to his Cuban friend and secretary, recounting his 1953 safari in Kenya. Hemingway reveals the true outcome of the hunt for the black-maned lion, a central theme of his posthumous novel True at first light (1999) later published as Under Killimanjaro (2005).
The writer shares his encounters with a giraffe and an impala, as well as unpublished spear hunts with the Masai, reconnecting with the emotions of his first African adventure twenty years earlier which had inspired classic parts of the Hemingway canon – The Green Hills of Africa, The Snows of Kilimanjaro and The Short happy life of Francis Macomber.
He also recalls a family tragedy: a rare attempt at reconciliation from his third child Gigi, who was suffering from gender dysphoria.