The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor

Although known by this abbreviated title, the true title of this work, much longer, perfectly summarizes the story: The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor Who Spent Ten Days Adrift on a Raft Without Food or Water, Was Proclaimed a National Hero, Kissed by Beauty Queens, and Made Rich by Publicity, and Then Abhorred by the Government and Forgotten Forever. Published in installments in El Espectador of Bogotá in 1955 and later as a book (in 1970), it is not a novel, but a journalistic report that recounts a real event. With impeccable literary technique and a professional news style, García Márquez narrates an event that befell a sailor in the Colombian navy named Luis Alejandro Velasco. The story, meticulously reconstructed by the South American writer in the first person from the protagonist's testimony, was tactically attributed to him in the press and only legitimized after the formidable success of One Hundred Years of Solitude.