The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor

The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor is a novel by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. In it, he undertakes a debate concerning a posible, but not necessary, moral reversion to a primitive, instinctual existence in the face of a sea catastrophy and consequent shipwreck and solitude. This theme has been explored previously by Daniel Defoe (Robinson Crusoe) and Voltaire (Candide), and more recently by William Golding (Lord of the Flies), Umberto Eco (The Island of the Day Before), Joseph Michael Coetzee (Foe), Jose Saramago (The Stone Raft and The Tale of the Uknown Island) and possibly many others.