For Hemingway, Cuba was a place to relax (the waters off Cojimar, where he docked his fishing boat, the Pilar) and a place to write. Robert Wallis The living room (above) at Finca Vigía is ...

Tim O’Brien, on death in "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" Ernest Hemingway reading on his boat, Pilar, 1947-1948. Credit: Ernest Hemingway Collection. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum ...

Mario Vargas Llosa on "The Old Man and the Sea" and the struggle between man and nature Ernest Hemingway gazing at a lone fisherman from the deck of the Pilar, 1955. Hemingway and the Natural ...

To celebrate Hemingway’s birthday, the hotel is offering oceanside book club chats, fishing excursions and rum tastings with the local Papa’s Pilar Rum Distillery, named after Hemingway’s ...