He refused to make eye contact and often hid his face.

His ankles were swollen, his wrists tiny he could barely walk. His hair was matted upwards like a shrub. There was no hiding the fact that this man had been at sea for a considerable time. And yet, against all odds, Alvarenga had done the impossible–he had survived.īased on dozens of hours of interview with Alvarenga and his colleagues, search-and-rescue officials, the medical team that saved the castaway's life, and the couple who nursed him back to health, Chile-based journalist and author Jonathan Franklin wrote 438 Days: An Extraordinary True Story of Survival at Sea, the first-ever account of one of the most incredible survival stories today.įor an in-depth look at Alvarenga's astounding experience that speaks volumes of his remarkable resilience and spirit, we present to you a gripping excerpt from 438 Days, originally published on The Guardian and featured here with permission from Franklin, followed by an exclusive interview with the author.Ĥ38 Days, which was published last month, is available from The Guardian Bookshop, Amazon, Simon & Schuster, Barnes & Noble, IndieBound, Pan Macmillan, and other online retailers.Īs they motored across the lagoon in the Marshall Islands, deep in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, the policemen stared at the specimen laid out on the deck before them. In the 438 days he had been lost at sea, he lived on a diet of raw fish and turtles, suffered the traumatizing death of his companion, and was nearly driven to suicide multiple times. When Alvarenga–wild-eyed, heavily bearded, dehydrated, barely able to walk and talk–washed ashore a remote island on January 30, 2014, he had drifted nearly 7,000 miles across the ocean.

438 days by jonathan franklin