100px|Hemingway on safari in 1954
True at First Light is a book by American novelist Ernest Hemingway
about his 1953–54 East African safari with his fourth wife Mary,
released posthumously in his centennial year in 1999. The book received
mostly negative or lukewarm reviews from the popular press and sparked
a literary controversy regarding how, and whether, an author's work
should be reworked and published after his death. Unlike critics of the
popular press, Hemingway scholars generally consider True at First
Light to be complex and a worthy addition in his canon of later
fiction. In January 1954, Hemingway and Mary were in two successive
plane crashes in the African bush in a two-day period. He was reported
dead by the international press, arriving in Entebbe to face questions
from reporters. The severity of his injuries was not completely
diagnosed until months later when he returned to Europe. Hemingway
spent much of the next two years in Havana, recuperating and writing
the manuscript of what he called the Africa book, which remained
unfinished at the time of his suicide in July 1961. In the 1970s, Mary
donated his manuscripts to the John F. Kennedy Library, including the
Africa book. The manuscript was released to Hemingway's son Patrick in
the mid-1990s. Patrick edited the work to half its original length to
strengthen the underlying storyline and emphasize the fictional
aspects. The result is a blend of memoir and fiction. (more...)
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Read the rest of this article:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/True_at_First_Light>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1707:
The last recorded eruption of Japan's Mount Fuji released some 800
million m³ of volcanic ash.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Fuji>
1811:
The first two in a series of four severe earthquakes struck the
Midwestern United States and made the Mississippi River appear to run
backward.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1812_New_Madrid_earthquake>
1893:
Czech composer Antonín Dvořák's New World Symphony premiered at
Carnegie Hall in New York City.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._9_%28Dvo%C5%99%C3%A1k%29>
1944:
World War II: The Wehrmacht of Nazi Germany launched its final
offensive in the western front, the Battle of the Bulge.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Bulge>
1986:
Dinmukhamed Konayev was dismissed from the post of First Secretary of
the Communist Party of Kazakhstan, sparking riots throughout the
country.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeltoqsan>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
cut off one's nose to spite one's face (v):
(idiomatic) To harm oneself as a result of attempting to harm an
adversary
<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cut_off_one%27s_nose_to_spite_one%27s_face>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When
change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction
is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained,
as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the
past are condemned to repeat it.
--George Santayana
<http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/George_Santayana>