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

_______________________________ 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

_____________________________ 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

___________________________ 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