Una de las historias más grandes jamás contadas
En Cuba, un viejo pescador ya en el crepúsculo de su vida, pobre y sin suerte, cansado de regresar cada día sin pesca, emprende una última y arriesgada travesía en busca de una gran pieza. Cuando al fin logra dar con ella, comienza una feroz lucha. Y el regreso a puerto, con el acoso de los elementos y los tiburones, se convierte en una última prueba. Como un rey mendigo, coronado por su imbatible dignidad, el viejo pescador culmina finalmente su destino.
En la cúspide de su maestría, Hemingway alumbró una historia en cuya sencillez vibra el clásico tema del valor ante la derrota, del triunfo personal sacado de la pérdida. El viejo y el mar lo confirmó como uno de los escritores más significativos del siglo XX, obteniendo el Premio Pulitzer y allanando su carrera hacia el Premio Nobel.
Ernest Hemingway ranks as the most famous of twentieth-century American writers; like Mark Twain, Hemingway is one of those rare authors most people know about, whether they have read him or not. The difference is that Twain, with his white suit, ubiquitous cigar, and easy wit, survives in the public imagination as a basically, lovable figure, while the deeply imprinted image of Hemingway as rugged and macho has been much less universally admired, for all his fame. Hemingway has been regarded less as a writer dedicated to his craft than as a man of action who happened to be afflicted with genius. When he won the Nobel Prize in 1954, Time magazine reported the news under Heroes rather than Books and went on to describe the author as "a globe-trotting expert on bullfights, booze, women, wars, big game hunting, deep sea fishing, and courage." Hemingway did in fact address all those subjects in his books, and he acquired his expertise through well-reported acts of participation as well as of observation; by going to all the wars of his time, hunting and fishing for great beasts, marrying four times, occasionally getting into fistfights, drinking too much, and becoming, in the end, a worldwide celebrity recognizable for his signature beard and challenging physical pursuits.
