Garc�a M�rquez, Fighting Cancer, Issues Memoirs

[Dave Monroe]

The New York Times
Wednesday, October 9, 2002
García Márquez, Fighting Cancer, Issues Memoirs
By JUAN FORERO

ARACATACA, Colombia, Oct. 6 — He had always been the
most disciplined of writers, sitting early in the
morning before his trusty Macintosh, the magical,
poetic words that have defined Latin America spilling
from his head. That part never changed.

But then Gabriel García Márquez, the 1982 Nobel
laureate from Colombia and the foremost author in
Latin America, learned in 1999 that he had lymphatic
cancer. He promptly cloistered himself with a
single-minded pursuit not seen perhaps since he wrote
the 1967 masterpiece, "One Hundred Years of Solitude,"
in a little more than a year, his only vice a steady
supply of cigarettes provided by his wife, Mercedes.

"I reduced relations with my friends to a minimum,
disconnected the telephone, canceled the trips and all
sorts of current and future plans," the author told El
Tiempo, the Colombian newspaper, in rare comments
about an illness he usually declines to discuss. "And
I locked myself in to write every day, without
interruption."

Now, after three years of researching and writing,
García Márquez, 75, who underwent chemotherapy in a
Los Angeles hospital and is recovering at his Mexico
City home, is poised to release what may be his
most-awaited book, "Vivir Para Contarla," or "To Live
to Tell It."

The first volume of the author's memoirs, it is an
emotional, sometimes bittersweet account of the early
years of a man so beloved in Latin America that he is
universally known by his nickname, Gabo....

The 579-page book, published by the Colombian
editorial house Norma, is being released in Colombia
on Wednesday and across much of Latin America and
Spain on Thursday. It may appear in German, Dutch and
Italian by the end of this year, and in the United
States as early as the end of next year.

[...]

The author explains how some of Colombia's most
harrowing history, like the 1928 army massacre of
striking United Fruit Company banana workers, became
engrained in his consciousness, not only inspiring his
writing but his left-leaning views. And how the loss
of loved ones pained him.

[...]

That has helped generate a flurry of delicious
speculation in Latin American literary circles, as
García Márquez's followers wondered what writing style
he would use and how he would structure the work.

"People just want to know about this man — it's the
magic of Macondo, you know," said Gerald Martin, who
is completing a biography of Mr. García Márquez. "This
man is so famous and everybody knows him so well, and
yet they cannot imagine how he is going to tell this
story."

The memoir, an early reading indicates, is written in
a straightforward, journalistic style with a few
touches of the magic realism that defines much of his
work. The book covers Mr. García Márquez's life to the
mid-1950's as the elder son of an itinerant pharmacist
and telegraph operator drops out of law school to
become a journalist.

He is shaped by the often violent history around him
...

[...]

At least two other volumes are on the way, one perhaps
taking the reader through 1982, when he is awarded the
Nobel, and the other about his relationships with
world figures like Fidel Castro, Bill Clinton and
François Mitterrand.

For Mr. García Márquez, writing "To Live to Tell It"
allowed him to re-explore his childhood while clearing
up the myths and inaccuracies written about him since
he achieved spectacular fame with "One Hundred Years
of Solitude."

[...]

As in previous books, Mr. García Márquez depended on
an army of relatives, friends and in some cases
journalists contracted for the occasion to help gather
the details and factoids to help him reconstruct
events....
 
[...]

To be sure, this is a writer famously obsessed with
death, some say afraid of it. It is evident in his
books; nearly all start with a death or a similar
theme. Mr. García Márquez's avoidance of funerals is
legendary, and the deaths of those close to him — two
brothers and his mother died during the writing of his
memoirs — deeply affect him.

"He once said, `It is not that I am afraid of death,
it is that I have a rage toward death,' " said Jaime
García Márquez.

Gustavo Tatis, a journalist in the coastal city of
Cartagena, said the author once expounded on his fear
of death in an interview. "He said, `The problem with
death is that it lasts forever,' " Mr. Tatis recalled.

Not surprisingly, then, Mr. García Márquez's fixation
with death has produced endless conjecture that the
author embarked on his memoirs because he feared he
would die soon.

[...]

Those close to him said Mr. García Márquez's latest
work should simply be seen as a celebration of his
life, not as a harbinger of death. Indeed, Mr. Abello
said that the memoir's title alone tells the story.

"All his motivation is contained in that title, `To
Live to Tell It' — it is the pleasure of telling the
story," he said. "It is like saying life has been
worth living."

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/09/books/09MARQ.html

Marquez's Memoirs Hits Bookstores

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Colombia-Garcia-Marquez.html

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