Stry Shipwrcked Sailor

In 1955, eight crewmen were cast overboard from the Colombian destroyer Caldas, en route to its home port of Cartagena from Mobile, Ala. The sole survivor, Luis Alejandro Velasco, told his adventures to Garcia Marquez, then working as a reporter for the Bogota daily El Spectator, where Velasco's story of a seeming eternity of thirst, hunger and hallucinations first appeared. The Nobel Laureate's lean prose perfectly captures the straightforwardness of the sailor's voice as he recounts his 10-day drift at sea in a cork raft: the fading senses of direction, motion, time; his struggle against sharks, which appeared punctually each evening at 5:00; starvation that drove him to tryin vainto eat the soles of his shoes. ""My heroism consisted of not letting myself die,'' states Velasco. This slim volume is a superb example of journalism by a professional of the art. (April 25)