The Old Man and the Sea

In a Cuban fishing village, the ageing Santiago has gone eighty-four days without catching a fish. The boy Manolin still brings him food, bait and companionship, but his parents have ordered him to work on a more successful boat. Determined to prove that his skill has not deserted him, Santiago sails alone far into the Gulf Stream and hooks an immense marlin.

The struggle lasts for days and demands all of Santiago’s endurance, patience and knowledge of the sea. After he finally kills the marlin and lashes it alongside his skiff, sharks strip away the prize during the voyage home. Hemingway turns the fisherman’s apparent defeat into a study of dignity, craft, isolation and the kind of victory that survives even when its material evidence has been destroyed.