The Old Man and the Sea

Here, for a change, is a fish tale that actually does honour to the author.

In fact The Old Man and the Sea revived Ernest Hemingway’s career, which was foundering under the weight of such post-war stinkers as Across the River and into the Trees.

It also led directly to his receipt of the Nobel Prize in 1954 (an award Hemingway gladly accepted, despite his earlier observation that “no son of a bitch that ever won the Nobel Prize ever wrote anything worth reading afterwards”). A half century later, it’s still easy to see why.

This tale of an aged Cuban fisherman going head-to-head (or hand-to-fin) with a magnificent marlin encapsulates Hemingway’s favourite motifs of physical and moral challenge.