"The Latin American writers recounts his early years in a book that John Freeman said, "has all the weight and storytelling prowess of his two masterpieces, Love in the Time of Cholera and One Hundred Years of Solitude."
On Living to Tell the Tale: "This first volume (two more are in progress) takes us into his mid-twenties, beginning with his eight years of uncertain if idyllic childhood with his maternal grandparents in the dusty village of Aracataca, on through his stint as rising staff writer for the Bogotá daily, El Espectador. The book ends in suspense: Gabito (his nickname) departs for Geneva on assignment to cover a "Big Four" summit, and in the last line he finds at his Swiss hotel a letter from his sweetheart Mercedes, who is replying to his marriage proposal."
"The life of Gabriel García Márquez, the magical realist whose much-loved fifth novel, One Hundred Years of Solitude, helped him secure the 1982 Nobel Prize for Literature, has already been assembled in fragments. Lacking from a book such as The Fragrance of Guava, an extended interview published in the year of the Nobel, is the whimsical grace of the fiction. Márquez's own account of his early years, Living to Tell the Tale, is first and foremost a storyteller's story, a languid spell cast by a master of language."
"The first in the trilogy of the Columbian Nobel Laureate's memoirs spans 28 years, from his parents' courtship and marriage through his birth in 1927... to his early career as a journalist."
Viewed on 29 January, 2008. || In this article Sabino discuses Marcelo Bucheli's book "Bananas and Business: The United Fruit Company in Colombia." In his discussion he states, "The massacre of UFCO laborers is important because this infamous event forms part of the company's 'terrible reputation' (p.3): Colombian novelist Gabriel García Márquez tells the story in his novel One Hundred Years of Solitude, referring to three thousand deaths, a deliberate inflation of the number of victims to make the story more spectacular... The fact that García Márquez's imaginative work has had so much influence on scholars is, I think, in part the reason for the intellectual bias against UFCO that prevails in Latin America."
Viewed on 29 January, 2008. || This article reviews Joseph L. Scarpaci's "Plazas and Barrios: Heritage Tourism and Globalization in the Latin American Centro Histórico" and states, "Although throughout the book there is some discussion of implementation and regulatory challenges on a macro level, a lower-level approach of regulatory regimes on district-by-district basis would have been intriguing. The discussions relating to the relaxation of zoning standards for Columbian author and Nobel Laureate Gabriel García Márquez (see page 172 ff.) and the tension between heritage preservation and weak local planning (see page 224 ff), among others, do provide some consideration of lower-level planning issues."
Viewed on 29 January, 2008. || "Sotomayor shares his memories with journalist Frank del Olmo who worked together on a Times series on Latinos in Southern California that won the 1984 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service." "Frank's friend of many years, author Gabriel García Márquez, a former reporter, wrote that he wished he 'hadn't read the news of Thursday, February 19: Frank del Olmo was dead and no disclaimer or correction was possible. Those of us who are born journalists discover early in our lives, and often against our will, that our craft is not just a calling, a fate, a need or a job. It's something we can't avoid: It is a vice among friends."
New York, NY : Afro-American Historical Association of the Niagara Frontier
Location:
Library, University of Illinois
Related Item Details:
29(1) : 91
Notes:
Viewed on 29 January, 2008. || In this article Delphine discusses the book "Black Girl in Paris" which begins "James Baldwin, Langston Hughes, Richard Wright, Gabriel García Márquez and Milan Kundera all had lived in Paris as if it had been part of their training for greatness."
Viewed on 29 January, 2008. || The article states about Ilan Stavans, "His scholarly books and articles examine a variety of canonical figures including Cristobal Columbus, Octavio Paz, Gabriel García Márquez..."