His best. Time may show it to be the best single piece of any of us I mean his and my contemporaries. William Faulkner. The Old Man and the Sea an apparently simple fable represents the mature Hemingway at his best and it is still one of his most read books. In 1954 Hemingway was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for his mastery of the art of narrative most recently demonstrated in The Old Man and the Sea and for the influence that he has exerted on contemporary style. Hemingways style wa