’The story of Velasco’on his raft, his battle with sharks overa succulent fish, his hallucinations, his capture of a Seagull which he was unable to eat, his subsequent droll rescue, has all the grip of archetypal myth. Reads like an epic’

--Independent

In 1955 eight members of the crew of a Colombian destroyer were swept overboard; Only one of them survived, drifting alone in a raft until he made landfall after ten days without food or water. Garcia Marquez interviewed, the man, Velasco, and wrote this compelling account of hunger, thirst, loneliness and determination to survive if only so that his tale could be told.