Em 28 de fevereiro de 1955, oito tripulantes do destróier Caldas, da Marinha da Colômbia, caíram na água e desapareceram durante uma tormenta no Mar do Caribe. Apenas um deles sobreviveu, Luís Alexandre Velasco, que, após passar dez dias à deriva, sem comer nem beber, foi encontrado semimorto numa praia deserta do norte da Colômbia. Praticamente sequestrado pelas autoridades e colocado em um hospital naval, só lhe foi permitido falar nesse tempo a jornalistas do regime, e apenas um da oposição, disfarçado de médico, conseguiu entrevistá-lo. A Colômbia inteira vivia, então, sob a ditadura folclórica de Gustavo Rojas Pinilla, e Velasco foi transformado em um herói nacional, fazendo discursos patrióticos no rádio e na televisão.
Pouco tempo depois, Luís Alexandre Veloso entrou na redação do El Espectador oferecendo sua história, que àquela altura não era nada mais do que notícia velha. Embora supondo que ele não teria muito o que contar, pois o governo fixara muito bem os limites de sua declaração, o editor-chefe seguiu sua intuição e fez um trato com Velasco.
Em vinte sessões de seis horas diárias, Velasco relatou a tragédia para o então repórter iniciante Gabriel García Márquez, que descobriu que...
Gabriel José de la Concordia García Márquez was a Colombian novelist, short-story writer, screenwriter and journalist. García Márquez, familiarly known as "Gabo" in his native country, was considered one of the most significant authors of the 20th century. In 1982, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.
He studied at the University of Bogotá and later worked as a reporter for the Colombian newspaper El Espectador and as a foreign correspondent in Rome, Paris, Barcelona, Caracas, and New York. He wrote many acclaimed non-fiction works and short stories, but is best-known for his novels, such as One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967) and Love in the Time of Cholera (1985). His works have achieved significant critical acclaim and widespread commercial success, most notably for popularizing a literary style labeled as magical realism, which uses magical elements and events in order to explain real experiences. Some of his works are set in a fictional village called Macondo, and most of them express the theme of solitude.
Having previously written shorter fiction and screenplays, García Márquez sequestered himself away in his Mexico City home for an extended period of time to complete his novel Cien años de soledad, or One Hundred Years of Solitude, published in 1967. The author drew international acclaim for the work, which ultimately sold tens of millions of copies worldwide. García Márquez is credited with helping introduce an array of readers to magical realism, a genre that combines more conventional storytelling forms with vivid, layers of fantasy.
Another one of his novels, El amor en los tiempos del cólera (1985), or Love in the Time of Cholera, drew a large global audience as well. The work was partially based on his parents' courtship and was adapted into a 2007 film starring Javier Bardem. García Márquez wrote seven novels during his life, with additional titles that include El general en su laberinto (1989), or The General in His Labyrinth, and Del amor y otros demonios (1994), or Of Love and Other Demons.