It’s always intriguing to hear of connections, whether phone conversations, correspondence or in-person meetings, between well-known authors. I’d forgotten that Ernest Hemingway and J.D. Salinger met when both were in Europe, during the WW II era.

Salinger’s subsequent letter to Hemingway, written when the former, then in the Army, was in a hospital in Germany, is being publicly displayed for the first time, beginning this Sunday at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston. Hemingway’s son, Patrick, will be on hand for the occasion.

The letter, long part of the library’s extensive Ernest Hemingway collection, has the younger writer reaching out to “Poppa” and reflecting on their meeting: “The talks I had with you here were the only hopeful minutes of the whole business,” wrote Salinger, who died Jan. 27 at age 91.

There’s no evidence that Hemingway ever replied with a letter, according to library director Thomas Putnam.

For more details, see the AP story, written by Bob Salsberg.