Thoughts on Footnote 2, Translator's Note and Forward (page vi) Part 1

In Footnote 2, F.X. Caldeira describes Ernest Hemingway, though originally an admirer, as one of "Straka's harshest critics."  In 1935, Hemingway was reputed to have given a interview to Le Monde stating his high regard for Straka.

This is unusual as most of, if not all, the historical characters mentioned in the footnotes are purely fictional.  And according wikipedia.org, Le Monde, a Paris evening newspaper, has only been in publication since December 19, 1944.  (Here is 19 again, and a very important number in S.)

During World War I, Hemingway was in Italy as a volunteer ambulance driver.   Notably (as it perhaps relates to S.), he helped recover the remains of workers killed in a munitions factory explosion. The experience was also documented in his book Death in the Afternoon.   According to Luca Gandolfi for an article he wrote in The Hemingway Review, the June 7, 1918 explosion occurred at the Sutter and Thevenot munitions plant in Bollate, Italy.

In 1934, Hemingway was traveling extensively in his boat Pilar and in 1935 he traveled to Bimini.  It was around this time that he wrote the short story that would later become the seed for his novel, To Have and Have Not.  In 1935, Hemingway's Green Hills Of Africa was published.

But why Hemingway?  Hemingway was one of the Lost Generation, namely those who came of age during World War I and the 1920's.  Notable Lost Generation writers were Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound and John Dos Passos.  (and another Lost reference?)

Sorry for such a short post, but I promise to pick the thread back up in Part 2.

(edited 7/31/14 for grammar and tags added)