Perspective

"The Story of A Shipwrecked Sailor" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez is a non-fiction story told from the point of view of Luis Alejandro Velasco who was lost at sea in a raft in the Caribbean for ten, terrifying heart-wrenching days. Although Marquez wrote the book, he did so in collaboration with Velasco. The story being told in the first person allows for the expression of more passion and emotion and adds authenticity. In the author's foreword, Marquez describes the process he used in getting the full story from Velasco. The book represents a journalistic, non-fiction reconstruction of what Marquez learned in his interviews and conversations with the Luis Velasco.

The two men, both young and somewhat naïve at the time, didn't realize that by divulging his story to a newsman that Velasco would lose his honor and that Marquez would almost lose his life. At the time...