Marquez and the Shipwrecked Sailor

In the introduction to The Story of A Shipwrecked Sailor who drifted on a life raft for ten days without food or water, was proclaimed a national hero, kissed by beauty queens, made rich through celebrity, and then spurned by the government and forgotten for all time, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, writing in 1970, admits that he does not “quite understand the usefulness of publishing it” (ix). He laments his suspicion that the only reason it is being published in book form is because “the name of the author…much to my sorrow, is also that of a fashionable writer” (ix). Indeed, the story of Luis Alejandro Velasco is not terribly unique in the annals of survivorship. Washed overboard with seven shipmates, he alone is able to board an unsupplied liferaft and watch the Columbian destroyer Caldas sail on as though nothing had happened. After 10 days of starvation, thirst, sun, and sharks, he washes up on the Caribbean shore of his homeland. The tale contains familiar events and themes: eating raw—newly killed—food, loneliness, the rising and dashing of hopes, the contemplation of the universe. Even in the sense of a newsworthy item, Marquez himself had wondered at the value of re-telling Velasco’s story when the assignment first came to him at the opposition newspaper El Espectador; Velasco’s story had been told numerous times already, to the point where his fame had started to fade and tarnish. In the end, after 120 hours of interview, Marquez not only fashioned a compelling story, but he also uncovered the importance of this re-telling at that time: Velasco’s story had been edited previously, and Velasco revealed certain important details that cast the government in a less than favorable light. At that time in Columbia, that sort of detail was explosive and politically important. But what about now? Looking at the story now, or even in 1970, it is hard to see from the text what the fuss was about. While this was merely a news item—albeit a long one—and it was published under Velasco’s name, the publication of ths book does give us an early look at the author who would later give us One Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera. The seemless transition from the natural to the supernatural is present in the hallucination scenes. The subtle presentation of a single man alone with the universe is also there. Readers now can see the early saplings of Marquez’s towering achievements. The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor is a small story, and it seems clear that Marquez’s main objective in the writing of it was to get the thing done. And while I must agree with the author that it is only being published now due to the fame of its author, it is not bad writing. It’s certainly of a higher quality than many other survivor tales, and for that, we can be thankful.