Salinger letter to Hemingway from 1946 to be put on public display at JFK Library

JFK Library to show Salinger letter to Hemingway

BOSTON — A letter sent by a young J.D. Salinger to Ernest Hemingway in 1946 will be put on public display for the first time at the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston.

Salinger met Hemingway in Europe during World War II, and closes the letter by telling Hemingway that the talks they had were the only “hopeful minutes” of his war experience.

The letter, available to scholars for years, is part of the Ernest Hemingway collection that has been kept at the JFK Library for 30 years. It will be displayed Sunday during presentation of the PEN/Hemingway Award, given annually to a first-time writer of fiction.

Library director Thomas Putnam says Salinger’s recent death sparked new interest in the letter, in which the future “Catcher in the Rye” author discusses his own efforts at a literary career.