This novella, only 140 pages, was first
printed in it's entirety in Life Magazine Sept 1st 1952,
inspiring a buying frenzy selling over 5 million copies of the
magazine in just 2 days.
The story about an aging Cuban
fisherman wrangling a large marlin in the gulf stream was written in
1951 in Cuba and published in 1952. In 1953 it won the Pulitzer Prize
for Fiction and led to Hemingway's nomination for the Nobel Prize in
Literature in 1954.
Man's struggle against nature is the
resounding theme throughout the book as Hemingway portrays Santiago's
travails as an experienced fisherman facing a dry-spell of 85 days
before finally wrangling a prized marlin. Hemingway also highlights
the indomitable spirit of man while illustrating his ideal of
manliness and character in the strong and determined fisherman facing
danger and discomfort without complaint and with resolution, both in
the days it takes Santiago to kill the marlin, and as he fights off
the sharks that end up destroying his prized catch before he reaches
the coast. Some say that Hemingway's tale is a reflection of his own
determination to prove his writing career was not over, and the
portrayal of the sharks may echo the critics who had been claiming
for the ten years that his writing career, after the successful
release of For Whom the Bell Tolls
in 1940, was over.
The book is dedicated "To Charlie
Scribner And To Max Perkins," friends of Hemingway's that had
passed away before the book came out. Max Perkins, who also edited F.
Scott Fitzgerald and Thomas Wolfe, died in 1947 and Scribner, who was
president of the publisher Charles Scribner's Sons, died in 1952.
The last work published by Hemingway
during his lifetime, signed first editions can sell upwards of
$15,000 - $17,000.
...
(US)
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