The selection by Ernest Hemingway will find some critics calling
attention to the fact that of all the pieces in this book this one has
certainly been reprinted before. In the winter of 1947, Bennet Cerf
in The Saturday Review of Literature, reported that Mr. Hemingway
told a friend, "I must be slipping. No new anthology containing my
Snows of Kilimanjarohas been publlished in almost four days."Like the other well-recognized piece in this book, Ivan Bunin
The Gentleman From San Francisco, The Snows of Kilimanjaro
represents its author at a high point of writing. Each author con-
siders his story the one which best represents his style and thought.
If there is any argument, the critics will have to take it up with the
author, whose choice in these instances the editor has not disputed."I think," Mr. Hemingway's comment was characteristically
laconic, "you might as well re-print The Snows of Kilimanjaro."
And, regarding his balloting on his contemporaries, he added,
"please do not publish any list or tabulation of writers I did not vote
for--nor publish my ballot in its entirety."--E.H.
Kilimanjaro is a snow-covered mountain 19,710 feet high, and is said to be the highest mountain in Africa. Its western summit is called the Masai "Ngàje Ngai," the House of God. Close to the western summit there is the dried and frozen carcass of a leopard. No one has explained what the leopard was seeking at that altitude.
"THE MARVELOUS THING is that it's painless," he said. "That's how you know when it starts."
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