This was supposed to be a report on a man, Luis Alejandro Velasco, who spent ten days adrift on a raft rocked by the Caribbean Sea. The then young journalist from El Espectador de Bogotá heard the story of the events from the mouth of his protagonist, and transformed it, perhaps unintentionally, into a prodigious literary exercise, a concise and vigorous narrative in which the pulse of a great writer beats. The serial publication of the report in 1955 caused considerable political uproar - the existence of illegal smuggling on a Colombian Navy ship was revealed, which cost the lives of seven sailors and the more fortunate shipwreck of Velasco - and exile for its author, who was forced to start a new life.