Which Ernest Hemingway novella won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1953?

The Ernest Hemingway novella that won the 1953 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction is The Old Man and the Sea.

Published in book form by Scribner in 1952, the story follows Santiago, an aging Cuban fisherman who struggles alone with a giant marlin in the Gulf Stream. Its spare prose, themes of endurance, dignity, and defeat, and tightly focused structure made it one of Hemingway’s most celebrated late works.

The year can cause confusion: the novella first appeared in Life magazine on September 1, 1952, but the Pulitzer was awarded in 1953. Hemingway received the prize after a jury and board considered his work for the 1953 Fiction award. It was his first and only Pulitzer Prize.

Readers sometimes confuse this title with For Whom the Bell Tolls, another major Hemingway novel. That book was not the Pulitzer winner; in 1941, the Pulitzer board gave no Fiction award, despite Hemingway’s nomination.