Gabriel García Márquez Read online

  ALSO BY GERALD MARTIN

  Men of Maize

  (translation and critical edition of Miguel Angel Asturias,

  Hombres de maíz)

  Journeys Through the Labyrinth:

  Latin American Fiction in the Twentieth Century

  In Memoriam:

  George Edward Martin and Sheila O’Keeffe,

  Dennis Shannon and Dorothy May Owen.

  And to their granddaughters

  Camilla Jane and Leonie Jasmine.

  Contents

  Acknowledgements

  Maps

  Foreword

  Prologue: From Origins Obscure (1800–1899)

  PART I / Home: Colombia: 1899–1955

  1. Of Colonels and Lost Causes (1899–1927)

  2. The House at Aracataca (1927–1928)

  3. Holding His Grandfather’s Hand (1929–1937)

  4. Schooldays: Barranquilla, Sucre, Zipaquirá (1938–1946)

  5. The University Student and the Bogotazo (1947–1948)

  6. Back to the Costa: An Apprentice Journalist in Cartagena (1948–1949)

  7. Barranquilla, a Bookseller and a Bohemian Group (1950–1953)

  8. Back to Bogotá: The Ace Reporter (1954–1955)

  PART II / Abroad: Europe and Latin America: 1955–1967

  9. The Discovery of Europe: Rome (1955)

  10. Hungry in Paris: La Bohème (1956–1957)

  11. Beyond the Iron Curtain: Eastern Europe During the Cold War (1957)

  12. Venezuela and Colombia: The Birth of Big Mama (1958–1959)

  13. The Cuban Revolution and the USA (1959–1961)

  14. Escape to Mexico (1961–1964)

  15. Melquíades the Magician: One Hundred Years of Solitude (1965–1966)

  16. Fame at Last (1966–1967)

  PART III / Man of the World: Celebrity and Politics: 1967–2005

  17. Barcelona and the Latin American Boom: Between Literature and Politics (1967–1970)

  18. The Solitary Author Slowly Writes: The Autumn of the Patriarch and the Wider World (1971–1975)

  19. Chile and Cuba: García Márquez Opts for the Revolution (1973–1979)

  20. Return to Literature: Chronicle of a Death Foretold and the Nobel Prize (1980–1982)

  21. The Frenzy of Renown and the Fragrance of Guava: Love in the Time of Cholera (1982–1985)

  22. Against Official History: García Márquez’s Bolívar (The General in His Labyrinth) (1986–1989)

  23. Back to Macondo? News of a Historic Catastrophe (1990–1996)

  24. García Márquez at Seventy and Beyond: Memoirs and Melancholy Whores (1996–2005)

  Epilogue: Immortality—The New Cervantes (2006–2007)

  Appendix: Family Trees

  Notes

  Bibliography

  Acknowledgements

  ONE OF THE BURDENS of researching a biography is that so many favours have to be asked of so many people, most of whom respond with generosity and goodwill even though they have absolutely nothing to gain from their endeavour. Rarely can a researcher have been indebted to so many people or, indeed, so deeply and hopelessly indebted to a significant proportion of them—even if, of course, the eventual shortcomings of the book are mine alone.

  First and foremost, in England (and in the United States), I thank my wife Gail, who over eighteen years has helped me research the book, prepare the book and write the book, with extraordinary generosity, dedication and (for the most part) patience; it is also her book and I would still be years away from finishing it without her assistance. And I also thank my daughters Camilla and Leonie, who have never complained at our occasional neglect of them and their families, whom we love so much. Second, my dear friend John King, of the University of Warwick, who has read both versions of this book, including the longer one, but has read them at the time and in the way necessary to ease my neuroses and maximize my time and effort; I will always be grateful to him.

  Gail Martin, Andrew Cannon and Leonie Martin Cannon (literary lawyers both), Liz Calder and Maggie Traugott all read the manuscript and made many invaluable suggestions. Camilla Martin Wilks gave critical help with family trees at a difficult moment.

  I could not be more grateful to Gabriel García Márquez and Mercedes Barcha. Few couples have more public and private commitments than they do and yet they have treated me with courtesy, generosity and good humour over almost two decades despite our shared awareness, never spelled out, that few invasions of privacy are more exasperating—or indeed far-reaching—than the repeated and always unpredictable requests and requirements of a biographer. Their sons Rodrigo and Gonzalo (and Gonzalo’s wife Pía) have also been friendly and helpful. Their secretaries, especially Blanca Rodríguez and Mónica Alonso Garay, have always assisted me on request, and their cousin Margarita Márquez Caballero, their secretary in Bogotá, has been not only charming but efficient and helpful beyond the call of duty. Carmen Balcells, García Márquez’s agent in Barcelona, has talked to me at length on several occasions and has enormously facilitated this undertaking both at the beginning and at its end. Jaime Abello, the Director of the Foundation for a New Ibero-American Journalism in Cartagena, has been most supportive in recent years, as has his colleague, my inimitable and unforgettable friend Jaime García Márquez; and without Alquimia Peña, Director of the Foundation for New Latin American Cinema in Havana, I might never have met Gabriel García Márquez in the first place. Later, Antonio Núñez Jiménez made his unique knowledge of the relationship between García Márquez and Fidel Castro available to me as well as the facilities of his foundation, the Fundación de la Naturaleza y el Hombre in Havana.

  In Colombia my cachaca friend Patricia Castaño’s generosity, knowledge of the country and networking skills gave me advantages and resources invaluable to a foreign researcher; not only would this have been a different book without her help and advice but the research and preparation would have been much less interesting and enjoyable without her friendship and hospitality and that of her husband Fernando Caycedo. Gustavo Adolfo Ramírez Ariza has contributed to my understanding of García Márquez’s relationship with the capital city (despite being a costeño) and has given me crucial and judicious assistance with illustrations and other details (my thanks also to his mother, Ruth Ariza); Rosalía Castro, Juan Gustavo Cobo Borda, Margarita Márquez Caballero and Conrado Zuluaga all opened their personal archives in Colombia to me with unhesitating generosity and gave me indispensable source material. Heriberto Fiorillo has kindly made the resources of the new “La Cueva” available to me and Rafael Darío Jiménez has guided me around Aracataca with great insight and good humour.

  Also in Colombia I have been privileged to meet not only Gabriel García Márquez’s mother, Luisa Santiaga Márquez Iguarán de García, on several occasions, but have been treated almost as one of the family (“el tío Yeral”) by his relatives, especially his brothers and sisters and their spouses and children. It would be individious to try to single anyone out but I am grateful to them all, not just for the information but for the extraordinary human experience they have given me both individually and collectively: Margot García Márquez; Luis Enrique García Márquez and Graciela Morelli and their children; Aida Rosa García Márquez; Ligia García Márquez (the family genealogist, literally a “godsend” to all researchers); Gustavo García Márquez and Lilia Travecero with their son Daniel García Travecero; Rita García Márquez and Alfonso Torres, Alfonsito and all the rest; Jaime García Márquez and Margarita Munive; Hernando (Nanchi) García Márquez and family; Alfredo (Cuqui) García Márquez; Abelardo García and family; Germaine (Emy) García; and last but certainly not least, the unforgettable and much missed Eligio (Yiyo) García Márquez, his wife Myriam Ga
rzón and their sons Esteban García Garzón and Nicolás García Garzón. I hope to give more of a “biography of the family” in a later volume.

  Among members of the extended family, I have met and been generously assisted by the writer José Luis Díaz-Granados and his son Federico, his mother Margot Valdeblánquez de Díaz-Granados (another indispensable family memorialist), José Stevenson, another distinguished writer and good friend, whose knowledge of Bogotá has been invaluable, Oscar Alarcón Núñez (yet another writer; the family boasts several), Nicolás Arias, Eduardo Barcha and Narcisa Maas, Miriam Barcha, Arturo Barcha Velilla, Héctor Barcha Velilla, Heriberto Márquez, Ricardo Márquez Iguarán in Riohacha, Margarita Márquez Caballero (mentioned above), Rafael Osorio Martínez and Ezequiel Iguarán Iguarán.

  In Paris, Tachia Quintana de Rosoff has always been helpful and welcoming, as was her late husband Charles Rosoff; I feel privileged to have known her.

  Worldwide, as well as those mentioned above, my interviewees have included Marco Tulio Aguilera Garramuño, Eliseo (Lichi) Alberto, Carlos Alemán, Guillermo Angulo, Consuelo Araujonoguera (“La Cacica”), Germán Arciniegas, Nieves Arrazola de Muñoz Suay, Holly Aylett, Carmen Balcells, Manuel Barbachano, Virgilio Barco, Miguel Barnet, Danilo Bartulín, María Luisa Bemberg, Belisario Betancur, Fernando Birri, Pacho Bottía, Ana María Busquets de Cano, Antonio Caballero, María Mercedes Carranza, Alvaro Castaño and Gloria Valencia, Olga Castaño, Rodrigo Castaño, José María Castellet, Fidel Castro Ruz, Rosalía Castro, Patricia Cepeda, Teresa (Tita) Cepeda, Leonor Cerchar, Ramón Chao, Ignacio Chaves, Hernando Corral, Alfredo Correa, Luis Carmelo Correa, Poncho Cotes, Luis Coudurier Sayago, Claude Couffon, Antonio Daconte, Malcolm Deas, Meira Delmar, José Luis Díaz-Granados, Eliseo Diego, Lisandro Duque, Ignacio Durán, María Jimena Duzán, Jorge Edwards, María Luisa Elío, Rafael Escalona, José Espinosa, Ramiro de la Espriella, Filemón Estrada, Etzael and Mencha Saltarén and family in Barrancas, Luis and Leticia Feduchi, Roberto Fernández Retamar, Cristo Figueroa, Heriberto Fiorillo, Víctor Flores Olea, Elida Fonseca, José Font Castro, Marcos María Fossy, Alfonso Fuenmayor (I owe Alfonso an unforgettable tour of old Barranquilla), Carlos Fuentes, José Gamarra, Heliodoro García, Mario García Joya, Otto Garzón Patiño, Víctor Gaviria, Jacques Gilard, Paul Giles, Fernando Gómez Agudelo, Raúl Gómez Jattin, Katya González, Antonio González Jorge and Isabel Lara, Juan Goytisolo, Andrew Graham-Yooll, Edith Grossman, Oscar Guardiola, Tomás Gutiérrez Alea, Rafael Gutiérrez Girardot, Guillermo Henríquez, Jaime Humberto Hermosillo, Ramón Illán Bacca, Michael Jiménez, José Vicente Kataraín, Don Klein, Maria Lucia Lepecki, Susana Linares de Vargas, Miguel Littín, Jordi Lladó Vilaseca, Felipe López Caballero, Nereo López Mesa (“Nereo”), Alfonso López Michelsen, Aline Mackissack Maldonado, “Magola” in the Guajira, Berta Maldo nado (“La Chaneca”), Stella Malagón, Gonzalo Mallarino, Eduardo Marceles Daconte, Joaquín Marco, Guillermo Marín, Juan Marsé, Jesús Martín-Barbero, Tomás Eloy Martínez and Gabriela Esquivada, Carmelo Martínez Conn, Alberto Medina López, Jorge Orlando Melo, Consuelo Mendoza, Elvira Mendoza, María Luisa Mendoza (“La China”), Plinio Apuleyo Mendoza, Domingo Miliani, Luis Mogollón and Yolanda Pupo, Sara de Mojica, Carlos Monsiváis, Augusto (Tito) Monterroso and Barbara Jacobs, Beatriz de Moura, Annie Morvan, Alvaro Mutis and Carmen Miracle, Berta Navarro, Francisco Norden, Elida Noriega, Antonio Núñez Jiménez and Lupe Véliz, Alejandro Obregón, Ana María Ochoa, Montserrat Ordóñez, Jaime (“El Mono”) Osorio, Leonardo Padura Fuentes, Edgardo (“Cacho”) Pallero, James Papworth, Alquimia Peña, Antonio María Peñaloza Cervantes, Gioconda Pérez Snyder, Roberto Pombo, Eduardo Posada Carbó, Elena Poniatowska, Francisco (“Paco”) Porrúa, Gertrudis Prasca de Amín, Gregory Rabassa, Sergio Ramírez Mercado, César Ramos Hernández, Kevin Rastopolous, Rosa Regás, Alastair Reid, Juan Reinoso and Virginia de Reinoso, Laura Restrepo, Ana Ríos, Julio Roca, Juan Antonio Roda and María Fornaguera de Roda, Héctor Rojas Herazo, Teresita Román de Zurek, Vicente Rojo and Albita, Jorge Eliécer Ruiz, José (“El Mono”) Salgar, Daniel Samper, Ernesto Samper, María Elvira Samper, Jorge Sánchez, Enrique Santos Calderón, Lászlo Scholz, Enrique (Quique) Scopell and Yolanda Field, Elba Solano, Carmen Delia de Solano, Urbano Solano Vidal, José Stevenson, Jean Stubbs, Gloria Triana, Jorge Alí Triana, Hernán Urbina Joiro, Margot Valdeblánquez de Díaz-Granados, Germán Vargas, Mauricio Vargas, Mario Vargas Llosa, Margarita de la Vega, Roberto de la Vega, Rafael Vergara, Nancy Vicens, Hernán Vieco, Stella Villamizar, Luis Villar Borda, Erna Von der Walde, Ben Woolford, Daniel Woolford, Señor and Señora Wunderlisch, Martha Yances, Juan Zapata Olivella, Manuel Zapata Olivella, Gloria Zea and Conrado Zuluaga. I am grateful to all of them and would like to be able to detail exactly what each of these interlocutors has done for me or taught me, but this would take a book in itself.

  Others to whom I am grateful for information, conversations and other forms of assistance or hospitality include: Alberto Abello Vives, Hugo Achugar, Claudia Aguilera Neira, Federico Alvarez, Jon Lee Anderson, Manuel de Andreis, Gustavo Arango, Lucho Argáez, Ruth Margarita Ariza, Oscar Arias, Diosa Avellanes, Salvador Bacarisse, Frank Bajak, Dan Balderston, Soraya Bayuelo, Michael Bell, Gene Bell-Villada, Giuseppe Bellini, Mario Benedetti, Samuel Beracasa, John Beverley, Fernando Birri, Hilary Bishop and Daniel Mermelstein, Martha Bossío, Juan Carlos Botero, Pacho Bottía, Gordon Brotherston, Alejandro Bruzual, Juan Manuel Buelvas, Julio Andrés Camacho, Homero Campa, Alfonso Cano, Fernando Cano, Marisol Cano, Ariel Castillo, Dicken Castro, Juan Luis Cebrián, Fernando Cepeda, María Inmaculada Cerchar, Jane Chaplin, Geoff Chew and Carmen Marrugo, William Chislett, Fernando Colla and Sylvie Josserand, Oscar Collazos and Jimena Rojas, Susan Corbesero, Antonio Cornejo Polar, Sofía Cotes, Juan Cruz, George Dale-Spencer, Régis Debray, Jörg Denzer and Leydy Di, Jesús Díaz, Mike Dibb, Donald Dummer, Conchita Dumois, Alberto Duque López, Kenya C. Dworkin y Méndez, Diamela Eltit, Alan Ereira, Cristo Figueroa, Rubem Fonseca, Juan Forero, Fred Fornoff, Norman Gall, Silvia Galvis (whose book on Los GM is indispensable), José Gamarra, Diego García Elío, Julio García Espinosa and Dolores Calviño, Edgard García Ochoa (“Flash”), Verónica Garibotto, Rosalba Garza, César Gaviria and Ana Milena Muñoz, Luz Mary Giraldo, Margo Glantz, Catalina Gómez, Richard Gott, Sue Harper Ditmar, Luis Harss, Andrés Hoyos, Antonio Jaramillo (“El Perro Negro”), Fernando Jaramillo, Carlos Jáuregui, Orlando and Lourdes Jiménez Visbal, Carmenza Kline, John Kraniauskas, Henry Laguado, Patricia Lara, Catherine LeGrand, Patricia Llosa de Vargas, Fabio and Maritza López de la Roche, Juan Antonio Masoliver, Tony McFarlane, Pete McGinley, Max and Jan McGowan-King, María del Pilar Melgarejo, Moisés Melo and Guiomar Acevedo, Oscar Monsalve, Mabel Moraña, Patricia Murray, Delynn Myers, Víctor Nieto, Harley D. Oberhelman, John O’Leary, William Ospina, Raúl Padilla López, Michael Palencia-Roth, Alessandra María Parachini, Rafael Pardo, Felipe Paz, Conchita Penilla, Pedro Pérez Sarduy, Carlos Rincón, Manuel Piñeiro (“Barbarroja”), Natalia Ramírez, Arturo Ripstein, Jorge Eduardo Ritter, Isabel Rodríguez Vergara, Jorge Eliécer Ruiz, Patricio Samper and Genoveva Carrasco de Samper, Emilio Sánchez Alsina, Noemí Sanín, Amos Segala, Narcís Serra, Donald L. Shaw, Alain Sicard, Ernesto Sierra Delgado, Antonio Skármeta, Pablo Sosa Montes de Oca, Adelaida Sourdis, David Streitfeld, Gustavo Tatis Guerra, Michael Taussig, Totó la Momposina, Adelaida Trujillo and Carlos (“Caturo”) Mejía, Carlos Ulanovsky, Aseneth Velázquez, Ancizar Vergara, Erna Von der Walde, Dan Weldon, Clare White, Colin White, Edwin Williamson, Michael Wood, Anne Wright and Marc Zimmerman. Again I would like to be able to detail each of their contributions, many of them considerable, some immense. To those I have overlooked I sincerely apologize.

  I also thank Roger MacDonald, Librarian at the University of Portsmouth, England, for his assiduous help at the beginning of this project, and the legendary Eduardo Lozano, Latin American Librarian at the University of Pittsburgh.

  Dean Peter Koehler and Dean John Cooper of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, University of Pittsburgh, both gave me invaluable support over many years
.

  I must also thank Neil Belton, editor extraordinary, whose original idea this book was; we had good times together.

  My agent Elizabeth Sheinkman came into my life at a providential moment and has been enterprising, decisive and warmly supportive at all times; she has my grateful thanks.

  Finally the team at Bloomsbury—Ruth Logan, Nick Humphrey, Phillip Beresford, the judicious and resourceful Emily Sweet, and the imperturbable Bill Swainson, whose diplomatic skills and inspired editorial work were absolutely crucial—treated their reprobate author with patience and consideration beyond any call of duty; the book is much the better for their unstinting efforts and I sincerely thank them all, as well as Diana Coglianese of Knopf, who has helped me undergo my transatlantic makeover with sympathy and tact.

  Foreword

  GABRIEL GARCÍA MÁRQUEZ, born in Colombia in 1927, is the best-known writer to have emerged from the “Third World” and the best-known exponent of a literary style, “magical realism,” which has proved astonishingly productive in other developing countries and among the novelists who write about them—like Salman Rushdie, to quote just one obvious example. García Márquez is perhaps the most widely admired and most representative Latin American novelist of all time inside Latin America itself; and even in the “First World” of Europe and the United States, in an era in which universally acknowledged great writers have been difficult to find, his reputation over the last four decades has been second to none.

  Indeed, if we look at the novelists of the twentieth century we discover that most of the “great names” on which critics currently agree belong to its first forty years (Joyce, Proust, Kafka, Faulkner, Woolf); but in the second half of the century perhaps only García Márquez has achieved true unanimity. His masterpiece, One Hundred Years of Solitude, published in 1967, a book which appeared on the cusp of the transition between “modernist” and “postmodernist” fiction, may be the only novel between 1950 and 2000 to have found large numbers of enthusiastic readers in virtually every country and culture of the world. In that sense, in terms of both its subject matter—broadly, the clash between “tradition” and “modernity”—and its reception, it is probably not an exaggeration to claim that it was the world’s first truly “global” novel.