Gabriel Garcia Marquez turned 80. He enchanted my youth with his novels. I read the translations of his books in French and I am rereading them now in Spanish. He is the most prolific and generous of Latino-American authors I read, along with his foe and friend with whom he reconciled recently, Mario Vargas Llosa.
UPDATE: It seems that the reconciliation story published by The Guardian a while ago has no serious ground.
The fight is thirty years old and there is are new revelations about it from Marquez.
''My people decide the truth in sixty countries every morning. And in every one it's different.''
Since March 29th 2006
6 comments:
80?
But I thought he was a hundred years old! :))
I never finished Cien anos de soledad, but I loved absolutely loved
El amor en los tiempos del cólera.
May he live until one hundred (if he so wishes)
Annie I agree with you, his most famous is not his best. I also loved
'El amor en los tiempos del cólera.' not read in Spanish yet, and 'Le general dans son labyrinthe' which is about Bolivar.
I'm so grateful to the person who recommended that I read "100 Years of Solitude". I first read it about 25 years ago, and it is still one of my favorite books.
The only book I've read of him is "The autumn of the patriarch", a masterpiece. And how come he reconciled with Mario Vargas Llosa (I rather likes his first novel, "La ville et les chiens")? Not on political grounds?
Ibn Kafka,
For a ong time I read only Marquez, Llosa and another less known Colombian writer, Alvaro Mutis. I like their fictions. Alvaro Mutis has a charcater who is present in most of his books, the atmosphere is dark and lyrical at the same time. A great writer.
About the feud between Marquez and Llosa, its end was announced in The Guardian not long ago. I think despite political differences these two geniuses can have many things to agree on. Not to forget also that Llosa has been waiting for a well deserved Nobel price and his feud with Marquez wasn't helping him.
It is strange to find in llosa's books characters who don't fit his political vision of society (unlike the neocon Ian McEwan for example).
'Qui a tué Palomino Molero?' or may be his best novel 'La guerre du bout du monde' or 'L'homme qui parle'. I think Llosa is only a naive in politics and I am happy that he wasn't elected president of Peru because he gave us so many good books since.
As for 'The Autumn fo the Patriarch' I liked it also, but you have to read 'Le Général dans son labyrinthe' which recounts the last weeks and days of Bolivar, pure splendor !
Post a Comment