Literary Fiction · ThoughtfulAn old fisherman hooks a giant marlin
The Old Man and the Sea
An old fisherman on a long unlucky streak hooks a giant marlin far out at sea
Santiago, an elderly fisherman, has gone eighty-four days without catching a fish. A boy, Manolin, used to fish with him. Santiago rows far out into the Gulf Stream, where he hooks a giant marlin and begins a long struggle to bring it in.
More about this book
Who
Santiago, an elderly fisherman, and Manolin, a boy who used to fish with him.
World
Cuba and the Gulf Stream, the warm ocean current off the Cuban coast.
What makes it different
It is a novella of about 140 pages. Hemingway wrote it in Cuba between December 1950 and February 1951, drawing on a story a Cuban guide had told him years earlier. It won the 1953 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and the Swedish Academy cited it when awarding him the 1954 Nobel Prize in Literature.
Feel
Short, spare and slow, mostly one man at sea.
Page count and cover shown for: Selected edition
Behind the book
Hemingway wrote the novella in Cuba between December 1950 and February 1951, drawing on a story a Cuban guide had told him years earlier.
Source: Wikipedia
Further reading
- The Old Man and the SeaWikipedia