Also published in English in the Paris Review (no. 166, 2003). In November 2000, Paternostro landed in Barranquilla from New York. Her mission was not to write the counterpart of Gabriel García Márquez's memoirs, but to reconstruct Gabriel García Márquez's life by a rich American magazine, that probably didn't know that Gabriel García Márquez himself was writing his memoirs. This extensive article narrates the story and findings of Paternostro while in Colombia.
"At the end of 2000, I spent three months traveling around Latin America-- Barranquilla, Cartagena, Bogotá, Mexico City-- to interview friends and relatives for an oral biography of Gabriel García Márquez. Autobiography is central to García Márquez's fiction, and I was curious how the people (many of whom make appearances in his work) who knew Gabriel García Márquez as a young man would remember him." -Silvana Paternostro