In 1955, eight crew members of Caldas, a Colombian destroyer, were swept overboard. Velasco alone survived, drifting on a raft for ten days without food or water. Márquez retells the survivor's amazing tale, from his loneliness and thirst, to his determination to survive. The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor was Márquez's first major, and controversial, work, published in Colombian newspaper El Espectador, in 1955. It is being re-issued on Gabriel García Márquez's birthday to celebrate the publication of his books as ebooks for the first time.