Customer Reviews

Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor

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"The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor," by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, has an interesting history (which is described in a short introduction by the author). In 1955, 8 crew members of a Colombian naval vessel were washed overboard. One of them, Luis Alejandro Velasco, survived 10 harrowing days on a drifting life raft before reaching land. The sailor collaborated with Garcia Marquez to produce a series of newspaper articles about the ordeal; those articles eventually became this book, which has been translated into a very readable English by Randolph Hogan.

The book is written as the sailor's own first-person narrative. This is truly an amazing tale of endurance under some horrible conditions. Velasco describes his experiences in graphic detail: the harsh weather elements, the disorienting hallucinations, the times of despair. Particularly interesting are his encounters with a variety of marine animals. But it's not all suffering; there are moments of poetic beauty.

I've never experienced anything as harrowing as this. But as a U.S. Navy veteran, I can say that Garcia Marquez skillfully captures the wonder that can only be encountered at sea, far from land. An excellent book.

This book is a marvel. The writing is so engaging in its simplicity and clarity. Vivid details abound in this account of Luis A. Velasco's ten days at sea in a little raft after he was swept overboard from his Colombian naval ship, en route from Mobile, Alabama to Cartagena, Colombia. He endured watching fellow crew members drown, followed by daily visits from sharks, intense sun that blistered his skin, near starvation and thirst, and fear. It's an amazing account of just what it is to survive, and not think or ponder about life, but just survive. And all with one oar bitten in half by a shark!

I've loved this author for a long time, and consider this early work of his a special treat. Stories of the sea can be so magnificent! I kept thinking of the Old Man and the Sea when reading this. Very highly recommended! You won't be able to put it down.

This is an amazing little book. The factual, detached style adopted by Marquez makes the horrible suffering of the sailor seem even more real. Incredibly, the sailor manages to see the humor in his circumstance, and in the human condition, even after ten days at sea. Marquez communicates beautifully his sure grasp of human motivation.

One of the first works of Garcia Marquez. His account is so factual and fantastic, so involved and detached, hidden and obvious. Originally published in a serialized edition in his small newspaper, the attention it drew from the public for its content forced him to close down the newpaper due to goverment's pressure. It was made into a book only after he became a reknown writer. Absorbing and unveiling.

You can read this very quickly, but it's so captivating you'll wish there were more. Marquez makes you feel the sailor's hunger, his thirst, his lonliness, his fear, and his hope. It's an ideal book to give a young reader--twelve to fourteen years old, perhaps--to get him/her interested in "adult" reading: the narrative is quite simple, but the story is as exciting as any you'll find, and one you'll remember for a long time.

I read this book as a teenager and loved the fact that despite the fact that there is only one character, the story never becomes boring.
Garcia Marquez describes the situation so vividly you can feel that you are on that raft with the protagonist.
Definitely worth reading...

I would recommend this book to anyone who likes real life stories. Marquez tells a true life story full of great detail. He tells evertything that happened to Luis while he was out at sea from trying to catch fish to being pecked at by seagulls. This story has great amounts of immense detail and imagery.

...I read this book in Spanish as a teenager and loved it. Just ordered it for my teenager son and when it came I started reading it again and couldn't put it down. Excellent translation. Reads as well in English as in Spanish. Great piece of journalism.

Mr Marquez based his narrative on the true story of 8 members of the destroyer "Caldas" of the Colombian Navy who fell overboard during a storm in the Caribbean Sea on February 28, 1955. It is a journalistic account of the survival of the only one of the eight men, Luis Alejandro Velaso, who managed to reach a life raft and survived ten days with neither food nor water until he drifted to the Colombian coast and was rescued by a group of villagers.
The narration is incredibly gripping considering that practically nothing happens to Luis during the ten days he spent on the raft. There is only the sea, the sky, the stars, the fish, the gulls and a lonely man lost at sea. It shows what a genial storyteller Mr Marquez is, a true virtuoso of the word. In the same vein, it is worth mentioning "The Life of Pi" by Yann Martel.

This is one of those few books that after reading it has haunted me for years.