I just got the horrible news that our friend Raul Villarreal (left above), painter, traveler, and bon vivant, has died after a heart attack last night. We've gotten to know Raul in recent years in #Hemingway circles. Spent time with him last year in Paris, where the photo was taken, and then a week in Havana with him and Mike Curry (right) in December. Raul and Mike, colleagues at Santa Fe College in Gainesville, Fla., have been showing a documentary they produced about Hemingway, Cuba and Key West, which features interviews with Valerie Hemingway (center) and others. Raul came to the U.S. from Cuba as a boy. His father had been Hemingway's major domo, the man who ran the Finca Vigia household outside Havana, for several years and then, after the Cuban takeover, managed the house as the Hemingway Museum. Raul published a book about his father, "Hemingway's Cuban Son," a decade ago. It was an honor to meet Rene, Raul's father, back then, and of course to have known Raul's large spirit ever since. Carol Zastoupil showed her Cuba paintings at an exhibit Raul curated a couple of years ago at Santa Fe College. And I hooked Raul up a few years back with Robert Stewart at New Letters, who published some of his paintings in an issue with a section on Cuba. This is just so depressing. RIP, hermano. Abrazos to Rita and all who knew him.
