13. María Jimena Duzán, interview, Bogotá, 1991.
14. See espcially Marlise Simons, “GM on love, plagues and politics,” New York Times, 21 February 1988.
15. See Hugo Colmenares, “El demonio persigue las cosas de mi vida,” El Nacional, 22 February 1989, in Caracas.
16. See “Robert Redford es un admirador de GM,” Excelsior, 15 October 1988.
17. Elías Miguel Muñoz, “Into the writer’s labyrinth: storytelling days with Gabo,” Michigan Quarterly Review, 34:2, 1995, pp. 173–93, on GGM’s work at Sundance, August 1989.
18. See GGM, “Una tontería de Anthony Quinn,” El Espectador, 21 April 1982.
19. Newell’s previous films included Four Weddings and a Funeral, Donnie Brasco and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.
20. See, for example, Larry Rohter, “GM: words into film,” New York Times, 13 August 1989.
21. See El coronel no tiene quien le escriba, guión cinematográfico por Paz Alicia Garciadiego (Mexico, Universidad Veracruzana, 1999).
22. Excelsior, 7 August 1990: New York Times reviews Salvador Távora’s adaptation of Chronicle of a Death Foretold in the Festival Latino. Mel Gussow said it would need a director with Buñuel’s genius to adapt GGM.
23. GGM, “Fidel Castro, el oficio de la palabra,” El País, 6 March 1988. See “Plying the Word,” NACLA, 2 August 1990.
24. GGM, Diatriba de amor contra un hombre sentado (Bogotá, Arango, 1994).
25. Osvaldo Soriano, “La desgracia de ser feliz,” Página 12 (Buenos Aires), 21 August 1988.
26. Osvaldo Quiroga, “Soledades de un poeta que no acudió a la cita,” La Nación (Buenos Aires), 21 August 1988.
27. It was said at the time that Monica Vitti had considered staging the play in Rome that year. Later it would be produced in Bogotá with Laura García as Graciela; in 2005 actress-singer Ana Belén played the part in Spain and in January 2006 Graciela Dufau, despite all her sufferings, revived the play in Buenos Aires. Despite the reservations of the critics, it is clear that actresses have enjoyed playing the role.
28. “GM sólo quiere hablar de cine,” Occidente, 3 December 1989.
29. “Cordial entrevista en Moscú de GM con Gorbachev,” El Espectador, 11 July 1987.
30. Excelsior, 21 July 1987.
31. See his voluminous “gratitudes” or acknowledgements in the published editions.
32. See Susana Cato, “El Gabo: ‘Desnudé a Bolívar,’” Proceso (Mexico City), 3 April 1989.
33. See GGM, “El río de la vida,” El Espectador, 25 March 1981.
34. “‘Me devoré tu último libro’: López a Gabo,” El Tiempo, 19 February 1989. On 29 July 1975, the 450th anniversary of the founding of Santa Marta, López Michelsen, the President of Colombia, met with Carlos Andrés Pérez of Venezuela and Omar Torrijos of Panama at San Pedro Alejandrino and paid homage to Bolívar, who had died there in 1830. A plaque commemorates the event. All three men would become close friends and allies of GGM over the next decade.
35. Belisario Betancur, Página 12 (Buenos Aires), 2 April 1989.
36. Excelsior, 21 March 1989.
37. María Elvira Samper, “El general en su laberinto: un libro vengativo. Entrevista exclusiva con GGM,” Excelsior, 5 April 1989.
38. See for example Oscar Piedrahita González, “El laberinto de la decrepitud,” La República (Colombia), 14 May 1989; and Diego Mileo, “En torno al disfraz lite-rario,” Clarín (Buenos Aires), 22 June 1989.
39. “El libro” (editorial), El Tiempo, 19 March 1989.
40. El Tiempo editorial, “La rabieta del Nobel,” 5 April 1989.
41. Excelsior, 28 March 1989. See also “’Mario ha ido demasiado lejos’: GM. ‘Admiro el valor de Vargas Llosa,’” Excelsior, 28 June 1989.
42. “GM no volverá a España,” El Espectador, 28 March 1989.
43. Excelsior, 28 March 1989.
44. Comité de la Carta de los Cien, “Open Letter to Fidel Castro, President of the Republic of Cuba,” New York Times, 27 December 1988.
45. The General in His Labyrinth (London, Jonathan Cape, 1991), p. 230.
46. The decision was a collective one, though Castro’s enemies assumed that he took a leading role; they also alleged that Ochoa had to be killed to conceal Fidel Castro and Raúl Castro’s own implication in the Caribbean drug trade.
47. 16 July, Sunday Mirror headline, “Shabby ghost at the feast,” compared her to Marie Antoinette.
48. “El narco-escándalo cubano. Siguen rodando cabezas militares,” El Espectador, 15 July 1989.
49. See Geoffrey Matthews, “Plague of violence scars land of magical beauty,” Guardian (London), 3 September 1989.
50. See “GM: ‘Hay que apoyar al Presidente Barco,’” El Tiempo, 20 August 1989.
51. “GM: ‘Castro le teme a la Perestroika,’” Excelsior, 22 December 1989.
23 / Back to Macondo? News of a Historic Catastrophe (1990–1996)
1. Most of these events are mentioned, whether briefly or at length, in GGM, News of a Kidnapping (London, Jonathan Cape, 1997).
2. “Condenada al fracaso, la guerra contra la droga: GM,” Excelsior, 3 November 1989.
3. See Anthony Day and Marjorie Miller, “Gabo talks: GGM on the misfortunes of Latin America, his friendship with Fidel Castro and his terror of the blank page,” Los Angeles Times Magazine, 2 September 1990, pp. 10–35, in which he states that the USA has an “almost pornographic obsession with Castro” (p. 34). If it were not for Castro, he adds, “the U.S. would be into Latin America all the way to Patagonia.”
4. See Excelsior, 9 February 1989.
5. Day and Miller, “Gabo talks,” p. 33.
6. Excelsior, 10 March 1990.
7. See José Hernández, “María es un texto sagrado,” El Tiempo, 10 March 1990.
8. Imogen Mark, “Pinochet adrift in his labyrinth,” Financial Times, 25 November 1990.
9. Reported in La Prensa, 5 September 1990.
10. “GM: sólo Fidel puede transformar a Cuba; EEUU siempre necesita un demonio,” Excelsior, 3 September 1990.
11. Excelsior, 27 January 1991; also “Llamamiento de Gabo por secuestrados,” El Tiempo, 27 January 1991.
12. “Gabo: ‘Es un triunfo de la inteligencia,’” El Tiempo, 20 June 1991.
13. “Redford: ‘Gabo es un zorro viejo,’” El Espectador, 3 March 1991.
14. Renato Ravelo, “El taller de GM,” La Jornada, 25 October 1998.
15. “Pide GM perdonar la vida a los dos infiltrados,” La Jornada, 18 January 1992.
16. Excelsior, 15 February 1992.
17. “GGM: “L’amour est ma seule idéologie,” Paris Match, 14 July 1994.
18. Excelsior, 31 July 1992.
19. Semana, 14July 1992.
20. “GM descubre la literatura y le gusta,” El Nacional, 10 August 1992.
21. Semana, 17 November 1992.
22. Semana, 29 September 1992.
23. “Nunca es tarde,” El Tiempo, 23 November 1992.
24. “GM desmiente en Cuba el rumor de discrepancias con Castro,” El País, 14 December 1992.
25. El Espectador, 11 January 1993.
26. Bill Clinton, Giving: How Each of Us Can Change the World (London, Hutchin-son, 2007).
27. El Espectador, 28 January 1993.
28. Excelsior, 29 January 1993.
29. “GGM exalta ‘el talento’ de CAP,” Excelsior, 18 June 1993.
30. James Brooke, “Cocaine’s reality, by GM,” New York Times, 11 March 1994.
31. 24 March 1994. The statement was issued as a press release.
32. David Streitfeld, “The intricate solitude of GGM,” Washington Post, 10 April 1994.
33. Gonzalo Mallarino speech at Bogotá Book Fair in praise of GGM’s new book (22 April 1994), published in El Espectador, 25 April 1994.
34. Jean-François Fogel, “Revolution of the heart,” Le Monde, 27 January 1995.
35. A. S. Byatt, “By love possessed,” New York Review of Books, 28 May 1995.
37. Rosa Mora, “El fin de un ayuno,” reproduced in El Espectador, 17 April 1994.
38. See Silvana Paternostro, “Tres días con Gabo,” Letra Internacional (Madrid), May-June 1997, p. 13. Castro himself would recall this event in Granma in July 2008.
39. Unomasuno (Mexico City), 25 July 1994.
40. See Ernesto Samper, “Apuntes de viaje,” Semana, 3 March 1987. I interviewed Samper in Bogotá in April 2007.
41. “GGM: “L’amour est ma seule idéologie,” Paris Match, 14 July 1994.
42. “Querido Presidente, cuídese los sentidos,” El Tiempo, 8 August 1994.
43. “Una charla informal,” Semana, 6 September 1994.
44. La jornada (Mexico City), 14 September 1994.
45. Fiorillo, La Cueva, p. 85.
46. “GGM: “L’amour est ma seule idéologie,” Paris Match, 14 July 1994.
47. Susana Cato, “Gabo cambia de oficio,” Cambio 16, 6–13 May 1996.
48. See “Por qué Gabo no vuelve al país,” Cambio 16, 24 February 1997.
49. Norberto Fuentes, “De La Habana traigo un mensaje,” 13 March 1996. Fuentes’s Dulces guerrilleros cubanos would appear in 1999 and GGM would get a grim starring role in it.
50. Pilar Lozano, “Gabo da una lección a los ‘milicos,’” El País, 16 April 1996.
51. Enrique Santos Calderón, “Noticia,” El Tiempo, 5 May 1996. Santos Calderón notes that Newsweek has recently said that GGM is fixated on Pablo Escobar because he represents power, which is GGM’s true obsession, not politics. See Virginia Vallejo, Amando a Pablo, odiando a Escobar (Mexico City, Random House Mondadon, 2007), for a remarkable X-ray of Colombian politics and society in the era of Escobar.
52. Roberto Posada García-Peña (D’Artagnan), “Las Cozas del Gavo,” El Tiempo, 22 May 1998.
53. GGM, News of a Kidnapping, pp. 129–30. The FARC, in particular, would give credence to this statement with their practice of kidnapping for ransom over the following years. In 2008 they suffered a series of devastating blows, including the death of their leader, “Sureshot” Manuel Marulanda, the death through bombing of the second-in-command, Raúl Reyes, and the liberation of Ingrid Betancourt by the Colombian armed forces.
54. See, for example, Joseph A. Page, “Unmagical realism,” Commonweal, 16, 26 September 1997; and Charles Lane, “The writer in his labyrinth,” New Republic, no. 217, 25 August 1997. See also Malcolm Deas, “Moths of Ill Omen,” London Review of Books, 30 October 1997.
24 / García Márquez at Seventy and Beyond:
Memoirs and Melancholy Whores (1996–2005)
1. Darío Arizmendi, “Gabo revela sus secretos de escritor,” Cromos, 13 June 1994.
2. “La nostalgia es la materia prima de mi escritura,” El País, 5 May 1996.
3. Rosa Mora, “He escrito mi libro más duro, y el más triste,” El País, 20 May 1996.
4. Ricardo Santamaría, “Cumpleaños con Fidel,” Semana, 27 August 1996.
5. Rodolfo Braceli, “El genio en su laberinto,” Gente (Buenos Aires), 15 January 1997.
6. Jean-Fran°ois Fogel, “The revision thing,” Le Monde, 27 January 1995.
7. El País, 9 October 1996.
8. Pilar Lozano, “Autoexilio de Gabo,” El País, 3 March 1997.
9. “Clinton y GM en el Ala Oeste,” El Espectador, 12 September 1997.
10. El Tiempo, 7 June 1998.
11. “Pastrana desnarcotiza la paz. Con apoyo del BID se constituye Fondo de Inversión para la Paz (FIP),” El Espectador, 23 October 1998.
12. “Salsa Soirée: fete for Colombian president a strange brew,” Washington Post, 29 October 1998.
13. GGM and his colleagues withdrew their bid, convinced that Samper would turn it down. In an interview with me in April 2007 Samper denied that the decision had been taken but said flatly that “no government anywhere in the democratic world is obliged to favour its adversaries.”
14. Larry Rohter, “GGM embraces old love (that’s news!),” New York Times, 3 March 1999.
15. GGM, “El enigma de los dos Chávez,” Cambio, February 1999.
16. “Castro augura el fin del capitalismo en el mundo,” El País, 3 January 1999.
17. Rosa Mora, “GGM seduce al público con la lectura de un cuento inédito,” El País, 19 March 1999.
18. I was in England and García Márquez called me from Bogotá on 28 June after the diagnosis. He knew that I had had lymphoma in 1995. He said, “I have never in my life been as exhausted as I was when this started. There was not a scrap of energy left in me.” We talked about the course of the illness and what one could do to fight as effectively as possible; how to eat, how to think, how to live. “Well,” he said, “now you and I are colleagues.” I sensed that he was very shocked but determined to fight. But I was also aware that he was seventy-two years of age.
19. Jon Lee Anderson, “The Power of García Márquez,” The New Yorker, 27 September 1999.
20. El Tiempo, 23 September 1999.
21. See this piece of clairvoyance in The Autumn of the Patriarch (1975), p. 181: “he stood up to the arguments of the sterile ministers who shouted ‘bring back the marines, general, bring them back with their machines for fumigating plague-ridden people in exchange for whatever they want.’”
22. Semana, 14 November 2000.
23. Juan Cruz, “El marido de Mercedes,” El País, 2 December 2000.
24. Guillermo Angulo, interview, Bogotá, April 2007.
25. 27 February 2001. The letter was circulated in newspapers around the world.
26. Freud was late for his father’s burial and had a guilty dream about it; he then failed to attend his mother’s funeral under the excuse of ill health.
27. See Richard Ellman on Joyce: “The life of an artist, but particularly that of Joyce, differs from other lives of other persons in that its events are becoming artistic sources even as they command his present attention” (James Joyce, new and revised edition [New York, Oxford University Press, 1983], p. 3).
28. Matilde Sánchez, “GGM presentó en Mexico sus memorias: ‘Es el gran libro de ficción que busqué durante toda la vida,’” Clarín (Buenos Aires), 24 March 1998.
29. Excelsior, 12 November 1981: “GM ends up talking about his memoirs, which he hopes to write quite soon and which will really be ‘False Memoirs’ because they won’t recount his life as it was, nor as it might have been, but what he himself believes it to have been.”
30. Caleb Bach, “Closeups of GGM,” Américas, May-June 2003.
31. El País, 19 July 2003.
32. Semana, November 2003.
33. Later, Love in the Time of Cholera would also be adopted by the Oprah Winfrey show.
34. See GGM, “El avión de la bella durmiente,” El Espectador, 19 August 1982, which was later adapted as a story for Strange Pilgrims.
35. Isaacs’s María is a partial exception.
36. María Jimena Duzán, interview, Bogotá, 1991.
37. GGM, Memories of My Melancholy Whores (New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 2005), p. 74.
38. Ibid., p. 45.
39. John Updike, “Dying for love: a new novel by García Márquez,” The New Yorker, 7 November 2005.
40. When I got home, reflecting on this conversation, I opened The General in His Labyrinth, to see if its last lines were, as I remembered, another hymn to the radiance of existence. In them the dying Bolívar is dazzled by “the final brilliance of life that would never, through all eternity, be repeated again.” Cf. GGM, “Un payaso pintado detrás de una puerta,” El Espectador, 1 May 1982, in which GGM recalls the emotions of his own radiant youth as dawn approached each morning in Cartagena.
Epilogue: Immortality—The New Cervantes (2006–2007)
1. Xavi Ayén, “Rebeldía de Nobel. GM: ‘He dejado de escribir,’” La Vanguardia (Barcelona), 29 January 2006.
2. Jaime GM, conversation, Cartagena, March 2007.
3. La J
ornada, 8 April 1997, prints GGM’s text, “Botella al mar para el dios de las palabras.”
4. Ilan Stavans, “GM’s ‘Total’ novel,” Chronicle of Higher Education, 15 June 2007. Two years before Stavans’s text, Christopher Domínguez, in Mexico’s Letras Libres (December 2004), repeated an earlier statement that García Márquez was Latin America’s “Homer.” Similarly, Roberto González Echevarría, in a notable piece in Primera Revista Latinoamericana de Libros (New York), December 2007-January 2008, remarked that OHYS was immediately recognizable as “something perfect … a classic,” a book which had marked both his life and his career. All three are rigorous, sceptical critics not temperamentally inclined to write blank critical cheques nor indeed to give fulsome praise to left-of-centre writers.
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