Foreword: The Real Hemingway

Harry’s Bar and Ernest Hemingway go way back, almost to the beginning. A frequent and favored hideaway of the young writer during his years spent living in Paris, Harry’s would receive mention in Hemingway’s first novel, The Sun Also Rises, and again in the later posthumous publication of his Paris vignettes in A Moveable Feast.

There is no shortage of legends or myths surrounding his time there. The passage of time has obscured most of the truth, and so we may never know for sure about the brawling, bawling, and baby cub lion—but we have our suspicions.

With that in mind, the sudden appearance of this piece, “The Real Spaniard,” was a bit of a surprise to us. By “us,” I mean myself and my grandfather Patrick, the 97‑year‑old middle‑born son of Ernest.

We had never seen it, never read it, never even heard of it. How could a high‑profile piece (for the time) such as this have slipped by us? We set out to find some of that truth that Hemingway was so fond of writing about.

We consulted a well‑read and astute cousin with more publishing experience than the rest of us combined: nothing. Never heard of it. He even suggested it might be artificial intelligence.

We then pinged our most erudite and sagacious literary attorney. He came back with a reference to the piece dating back to 1927—and published first in… wait for it… The Boulevardier magazine. A nearly hundred‑year‑old forgery? Not likely. It even passes our smell test.

Hot damn, now we are on to something! A Hemingway article previously unknown to the family? This is a special and rare occurrence, not for the faint of heart or even the aggressively sober.

What’s more: the voice we hear in “The Real Spaniard” is a young Hemingway—full of playful humour and wit, poised for greatness on the world stage. He is self‑deprecating and down to earth; maybe a bit sarcastic, but definitely jocular. The piece is a sort of snapshot of the author, not yet 30 years old, and only one year after the momentous publication of The Sun Also Rises. He was about to move to Key West and kickstart the rest of his fabled life.

I ask Pat whether old Bromfield ever decided who the real Frenchman was.

“Himself!” Pat declared.

“Then who do we think is the real Spaniard?”

“…Maybe I am the real Spaniard,” suggests Pat, staring off into the past.

And who am I to say that he is not.