To which Catholic shrine did Hemingway donate his Nobel Prize medal?

Hemingway donated his Nobel Prize medal to the shrine of Our Lady of Charity of Cobre in Cuba.

Hemingway received the 1954 Nobel Prize in Literature, largely in recognition of The Old Man and the Sea and his influence on modern fiction. He had a deep personal connection with Cuba, where he lived for many years at Finca Vigía near Havana. The island also provided the setting and cultural background for much of The Old Man and the Sea.

The shrine, known in Spanish as the Santuario de la Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre, is in El Cobre near Santiago de Cuba. Our Lady of Charity is Cuba’s patron saint, and the small Marian statue housed there is one of the country’s most important religious and national symbols. Hemingway offered the medal as a gesture of gratitude to the Cuban people.

The medal was later stolen from the shrine in 1986 and recovered days afterward. It is not the same as the Nobel diploma or the prize money, which are separate parts of the award. “El Cobre Shrine” is a recognizable informal reference, but the fuller canonical name is Our Lady of Charity of Cobre, also rendered as Our Lady of Charity of El Cobre.