GRANMA INTERNATIONAL
Havana.  June 11, 2009

80 YEARS IN THE LIFE OF GABRIEL GARCIA MARQUEZ

Narrating to live it    (Part I)

Briton Gerald Martin publishes first "authorized" biography of Gabo: a monumental literary and editorial event

http://www.granma.cu/ingles/2009/junio/juev11/GABRIEL-GARCIA-MARQUEZ-1.html

By Michel Porcheron

• ONE would have had to have been in New York in person on Wednesday, May 27 to understand what happened at the Americas Society. British academic Gerald Martin launched what he called "a tolerated biography" of Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez, winner of the 1982 Nobel Prize for Literature.

This book of more than 600 pages (of the 2,500 of manuscript) is already considered a monumental literary and editorial event which will obviously have a place apart in the history of world literature. The English-language edition of Gabriel García Márquez: A Life was launched for the first time in the United Kingdom, published by Bloomsbury, which described it as an "authorized" biography. Since May 5, it has been distributed in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf publishers, which issued the U.S. edition.

NOTE: THIS COMING OCTOBER 6

Spanish-language editions will be published in the United States by Knopf, in the rest of the world by RH Mondadori publishers. Milena Alberti, director of the Knopf Spanish-langue publications department, said translation is underway and the goal is to have the book out by October 6.

"It is a real process, given that now the translation team has to research the writings of García Márquez translated into the English book with the writer’s originals," Alberti said. "The translation is being done in Spain, and an adaptation to Latin American Spanish is also needed."

During the New York event, Martin described García Márquez as "the finest novelist in the world, if one does not consider the world to be just the United States and the United Kingdom." Martin also said that as far as he knew, García Márquez was not working on a book at present.

Gerald Martin, 64, a professor at the University of Pittsburgh (U.S.A.) and researcher with the London Metropolitan University in London, a translator for Miguel Angel Asturias (Mr. President), spent almost 20 years researching the life and work of García Márquez. He spoke with him on numerous occasions, for hundreds of hours, and talked to and interviewed more than 300 people close to the Colombian, including relatives, friends, heads of state, starting with those in Colombia, Fidel Castro, politicians like Felipe González and writers such as Alvaro Mutis, Carlos Fuentes and Mario Vargas Llosa.

"At first, García Márquez told me that he wouldn’t collaborate with my project. ‘What do you want to do with this, are you sick? I haven’t died yet!’" That was how García Márquez reacted about 18 years ago when Martin presented the idea to him, he said. "After an hour and a half and several whiskies, he finally agreed to participate in the biography, but he said to me, ‘OK, but don’t make me work,’" the biographer said humorously during the New York event. That’s why his book is more of a "tolerated" biography than an authorized one, Martin says, and in fact, García Márquez would have preferred for it not to be published. In the book’s epilogue, he says that, given that Gabo had tolerated the project, had told him that he wouldn’t oppose it or prevent Martin from talking to his people. He adds, "But he could have told me that he would appoint me his authorized biographer, and give me all of his notebooks, letters and access to all his personal effects. But he never did anything of the sort." Martin says he did not raise the issue so as not to seem ungrateful; on the contrary, he feels enormously grateful to García Márquez for his collaboration, although gratitude is not the best motivation for a biography. He said they got along very well, considering that it was difficult. Nobody likes having a biographer, he said…

PREVIOUS CHAPTERS

On March 26, 2006, Granma International published an article, "Gabo stuck," which said, "The publication of the second volume of his autobiographical trilogy may be postponed." García Márquez published the first volume, Living to Tell the Tale, in 2002. His most recently published work was Memories of My Melancholy Whores, a short novel (2004).

Actually, everything began with an interview of García Márquez published by La Vanguardia, in Barcelona, Spain, in its Sunday supplement of January 29, 2006. Outside of its deep interest, at that time it did not have the importance, the worldwide impact then that it now has three years later. It can now be read differently, because between the interview (with journalist Xavi Ayén) and Martin’s biographical work, there is an obvious, strong and fundamental tie that allows the reader to better understand how and why the authorized biography came about, and the relevance of Gabriel García Márquez: a Life. Moreover, since then, Gabo has not accepted any other interview with a "historical" span and that sums everything up.

Some information must be noted. García Márquez himself wondered, could his inspiration be on the way to expiring? It was not a matter of numbers but of faculties in front of his cutting-edge computer keyboard. GGM (for ease and also one of the signatures of the journalist García Márquez in the Colombian newspaper El Espectador, as of 1954) told Ayén, "This year, 2005, I have taken a sabbatical. I have not sat down in front of the computer. I have not written one line. And moreover, I do not have a project or any prospect of having one. I had never left off writing; this has been the first year in my life that I have done so…"

"The sabbatical year has ended for me, but I’m finding excuses to prolong it throughout all of 2006. Now that I’ve discovered that I can read without writing, let’s see how far it goes. I think I’ve earned it. With everything that I’ve written, right? …Actually, with the practice that I have, I could write something without too many problems: I sit down in front of the computer and get it out… but people realize if you haven’t really put yourself into it… People should know that if I publish anything else, it will be because it’s worth it."

Xavi Ayén: And have you found something better to do?

I’ve found a fantastic thing: Staying in bed reading! I’m reading all the books I never had time to read…

And the second volume of your memoirs?

I think I’m not going to write it. I have some notes, but I don’t want it to be a purely professional mechanical thing. I realize that if I publish it as second volume, I am going to have to say things in it that I don’t want to say, because of certain personal relationship that are not very good… I found a number of people that had to appear, and that, damn it, I don’t want to be in my memoirs. It would not be honorable to leave them out, because they were important in my life, but I don’t really like them."

Reticent of speaking about his private life, Gabo told Ayén (January 2006), "For that, you have my official biographer, Gerald Martin of the United States, who, incidentally, should have published the book by now; I think he’s waiting for something to happen to me…" In February or March of 2006, very few people had noticed that García Márquez had chosen a biographer, and even fewer an "official" biographer (from the U.S. or not, actually working in the United States).

Years later, Gerald Martin confessed in the book’s epilogue, "I found out that I was his official biographer by reading that famous interview…" He calls it a "surprise interview," and holds the theory that "it was not something that was improvised"; instead, "it seems like a family meeting took place where it was decided, under the circumstances, to make one last statement followed by retirement. Afterward, silence."

Returning to January 2006, many Latin American newspapers were evidently taken by surprise; this revelation hit them hard, literally and figuratively. According to Clarín, an outstanding Argentine newspaper, the most important thing to highlight in the interview was "his surprise confession," which moreover, he is without anesthesia. "Without anesthesia, he is letting the world know that 2005 has been a virtually non-productive year for him." Those same newspapers also emphasized that García Márquez accepted two things he never used to do: in the photo, by photographer Kim Manresa, he is posing with his wife, Mercedes Barcha, inside his home in Mexico. One of his children participated for a moment in the interview. On the other hand, the writer evokes several aspects, anecdotes and episodes of his personal and family life with his usual sense of humor, the so-called "mamagallismo" (irony, parody, and over-exaggeration,) of the Colombian Caribbean.

"BAKING CAKES"

Three years have passed. Three very important years (more) in the life of Gabriel García Márquez. The writer did not publish anything. The Patriarch appears to have entered a slow retirement.

For the last five years, expectations of reading something new by García Márquez have been major and constant. If news about García Márquez continues to be valid and potent today, it is due not directly to the writer, but to his "official biographer." For the first time, a discreet biographer, of Anglo-Saxon roots, talks about 80 years (1927-2007) of the life of this writer, the son of a telegraph operator, and who will always be the son of a telegraph operator for the rest of his life. That is how the life and work of writer and journalist Gabriel García Márquez of Aracataca should be understood.

What does Martin think about rumors that García Márquez has just finished a new novel? Martin: "It would really surprise me…"

For his part, a leading "Gabologist," Argentine Tomás Eloy Martínez, said, "Only he knows what his desires and limits are in terms of continuing to write. Anything else is guessing." And what does Gabo say? One of the most prolific writers on the face of the Earth gave one of the most laconic and appropriate responses known on this same Earth. With 90 words he "finished off the job" (Quima Mono, La Vanguardia). Read the entire text of his telegraphic interview (30 seconds) with a journalist from Bogotá’s El Tiempo newspaper:

El Tiempo: Maestro, could you answer some questions for El Tiempo? Gabriel García Márquez: Call me later, I’m writing. El Tiempo: We called him later at his studio in Mexico City, and he only agreed to answer two questions:

El Tiempo: It is true you won’t return to writing?

García Márquez: Not only is it not true, but the only thing that is true is that the only thing I do is write.

El Tiempo: But people have said that you won’t publish any more books?

García Márquez: My profession is writing, not publishing. I’ll know when the cakes I’m baking are ready to taste.

Gabriel García Márquez is baking cakes then… For his part, Gerald said (to DPA) that he now has a long version of the biography. "It will be a minimum of 2,500 pages, and I expect it to be published within five years." Also, a book about the experiences of the biographer himself during the almost two decades he dedicated to the life and work of Gabo. "It will be the chronicle of a chronicle," he said.

 

 Havana.  June 11, 2009

80 YEARS IN THE LIFE OF GABRIEL GARCIA MARQUEZ
Nobel laureate for 27 years, "Gabo" for 55
(Part II)

http://www.granma.cu/ingles/2009/junio/juev11/GABRIEL-GARCIA-MARQUEZ-2.html

Michel Porcheron

• JUST like cause comes before effect, existence precedes essence, and motorcycle outriders lead official retinues, one always has a common name or nickname before becoming a Nobel laureate.

Is there life after winning a Nobel Prize? Are there happy "Nobelites?" It is a vast subject. Let us take just one random example of winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature (the best-known and the most popular in the media, much more so than the Nobel Peace Prize winners). And the thing is, it is worth far more to be called "Gabo" than to be a Nobel laureate… The time of indifference is worth much more than that of celebrity, and all that it brings with it. That has been confirmed by an authorized source. G. García Márquez never thought differently. Especially after (the age of) 82.

TWO OR THREE THINGS WE KNOW ABOUT HIM

As everybody knows, "being a candidate" for an upcoming Nobel is considered a lack of taste and contrary to the statutes of the venerable Swiss Academy (18 members, founded on March 20, 1786) and one day you were declared nobelizable, along with other candidates. Let us open the French dictionary Le Petit Robert 2008 to the letter N: nobelizable. adj. Etim. 1973; from Nobel (Prize). Susceptible to winning a Nobel Prize. The nobelizable "immense novelist" Gabriel García Márquez (Philippe Sollers)". And then you are "nobelizable" (Important to read: "The fortune of not standing in line," journalistic article, originally published on May 4, 1981).

"You have said ‘Gabo’. How does one become ‘Gabo’?

"First of all a small linguistic explanation is needed. Could it be, perhaps, a diminutive, a shortening, an apheresis, an apocope or an acronym? The first, according to the dictionary, is "a proper name… that indicates familiarity or affection in the person who uses it. Joey for Joseph, or Johnny for John, are diminutives. The adjective "diminutive" provides or adds the idea of smallness (often with a nuance of affection). Hence, "Gabo" is not a diminutive. And as we shall soon find out, it is not a pseudonym, either, nor a nom de guerre, stage name or nom de plume. Neither is it an apheresis: Ling. Loss of a phoneme or group of phonemes at the beginning of a word (opposite of apocope). We say "bus" for "omnibus." So? Conclusion?

Jean-François Fogel, a top-rate "Gabologist" is not of much help to us; on the contrary when he writes in his blog, "Gabo is not just Gabo," we might ask ourselves, "Isn’t it better to go to the trunk than to the branches? With that said, it is also true that God’s word is not always the gospel.

— Hey man! Mr. Gabo!— he practically shouted, using the name he had invented for me in Barranquilla as an apocope of Gabito and which only he used" (from the autobiography, Living to Tell the Tale).

Apocope: the loss of one or more sounds or letters at the end of a word (opposite of apheresis). Shortening: people say "TV" instead of television, etc. The abbreviation of a word by dropping one or more syllables. Bike is a shortening of bicycle. But Gabo is not an apocope of Gabriel but of Gabriel García Márquez. Let there be no doubt about it.

Moreover, in addition to being an epithet, of constituting an indelible mark, a typographical simplicity, a logo and above all four (generally) affectionate letters, of friendship and especially respect, Gabo is an apocope and we didn’t know it. Now that the linguistic tangle has been untangled, let us review some historical/biographical twists and turns to culminate our unusual, special story:

As if to provide evidence of the decency, pertinence and legitimacy of those four letters, García Márquez has made them his own for 55 years. You are a friend, you call him by phone, he likes to chat on the phone, especially after he decided not to write letters anymore. His tone is affable, cordial, "always very Caribbean," says his great friend. Plinio Apuleyo Mendoza): "What’s up, this is Gabo."

"I should have been called Gabriel José de la Concordia, but they forgot about it at the baptism."

Flashback: Bogotá, 1954. At the time, Gabriel José García Márquez, 27 years old, recently arrived from Barranquilla — on the northern Caribbean coast, more than 1,000 km from the capital — that young man "wearing loud-colored clothing, with an excessive mustache and eyes, and extremely pale and thin" (1) was bored in Bogotá, despite having been invited for a few days by his friend Alvaro Mutis, then the public relations man for the Esso company. "I would spend my days in Mutis’ office, and after a few days, I didn’t really know what to do (2), taking refuge from the cold and loneliness." (1)

Upon returning to the Andean city of Bogotá in late January, after six years of absence (1943-1948 – he had left shortly after the Bogotazo), he had arrived in the former Techo airport with his globetrotter’s suitcase and two packages (1), which were the original copies of the stories La casa and La hojarasca. So began the long, eventful novelistic journey of the kid from Aracataca, one of the 11 children of the telegraph operator Gabriel Eligio García Martínez and Luisa Santiaga Márquez Iguarán.

As the Colombian essayist Dasso Saldívar says, "In January 1943, he saw himself heading into the most radical and perhaps most useful act of his life: leaving home" and financing his secondary and university studies. Bogotá was going to be "the city of his nightmares" (1) (See "Bogotá 1947," published originally on October 21, 1981, in Notas de prensa, Obra periodística, Mondadori, 1999) and, at the same time, the luckiest thing in his life. Five years later, before leaving the capital to return to the Atlantic Coast (20 months in Cartagena contributing to the El Universal newspaper and, from January 1950, to the Heraldo de Barranquilla, until December 1952), he had published three short stories in the literary supplement of El Espectador in Bogotá. He was in his second year of law school at the Universidad Nacional. He was just 20 years old. In January 1954, "thinking that I wasn’t doing anything and I was wasting Mutis’ time, I decided to go back to the coast" (2), believing he would never get a steady job, he finally got an offer as staff writer with a tempting salary, "considering that in previous years, an article in El Heraldo (signed "The Giraffe") earned him 3 pesos." (2)

Mutis’ office at Esso was on an upper floor of a building on the centrally-located Jiménez de Quesada Avenue. By pure coincidence, the El Espectador newsroom was located on the first and second floors of that same building. García Márquez knew the place. Once in a while, he would write brief articles that the paper’s editors would ask for when they "were short of a writer." The Barranquilla native would do so, "to get them out of a jam."

"That guy is first-rate."
But another problem had emerged, Zaldívar recounts: when Gabriel Cano, the newspaper’s owner, saw him for the first time, he was "transfixed": he could not believe that it was the "great writer" that Alvaro Mutis and the deputy editor and writer Eduardo "Ulises" Zalamea Borda had mentioned in approving of his short stories and news articles. Cano told Mutis: "Man, Mr. Alvaro, that kid may have a lot of talent, but the way he looks, for God’s sake!" Mutis answered, "He’s the best worker that you’re going to have at this newspaper. You have never had a worker like him."

The offer, a contract for 900 pesos monthly, came of course from El Espectador (the second-largest daily after El Tiempo). He accepted the opportunity ("I was breathless. When I recovered, I asked him again how much and he repeated it, spelling it out: n-i-n-e h-u-n-d-r-e-d…" --- from Living to Tell the Tale) and stayed at the paper. After a few days of work, the newspaper owner called his friend Mutis: "Listen Mr. Alvaro, you were completely right: that guy is first-rate. Thanks a million."

"I should have been called Olegario," the saint whose feast day falls on March 6 (1927), but the saints’ calendar was nowhere to be found.
Who was the person who practically shouted "Hey man! Mr. Gabo"? An apocope that only "he" used. Who was that man that brought "Gabo" to the world? Eduardo "Ulises" Zalamea Borda. Remember that name and surname, "my true literary dad" (GGM), his "Christopher Columbus." García Márquez himself provides the details in his autobiography: "I had arrived (in Bogotá) the day before. The editor of El Espectador, Guillermo Cano, telephoned me and insisted that I come by and say hello. So I did…. He took me by the arm and separated me from his colleagues in the newsroom. ‘Listen to me for a sec, Gabriel,’ he said to me with an innocence that was beyond suspicion. ‘Why don’t you do me a big favor and write up a little editorial note for me that I need to send the paper to press?’ He indicated the size of half a glass of water with his thumb and forefinger, saying ‘About that long.’

"More amused than he was, I asked him where I could sit down, and he pointed to an empty desk with a typewriter on it from times gone by. I sat down without any more questions, thinking about a good theme for them, and I stayed there in that same chair, with the same desk and the same typewriter, for the next 18 months.

"Minutes after my arrival, Eduardo Zalamea Borda, the deputy editor, came out of the adjoining office, absorbed with a file full of papers. He started when he recognized me: "Hey man! Mr. Gabo!" he practically shouted, using the name he had invented for me in Barranquilla as an apocope of Gabito, and which only he used. But this time it became generalized in the newsroom, and they kept using it, even in print: Gabo.

"I don’t remember the subject of the note that Guillermo Cano asked me to write… I finished it in half an hour, made a few corrections by hand and gave it to Guillermo Cano, who read it standing up, peering shortsightedly over his glasses…. Just like his predecessors must have done, he made a few changes jumbled up with minor questions, and ended with the first practical and simplifying use of my new name:

"Very good, Gabo."

Gabo was born that day, the same one who was awarded the Nobel Prize 28 years later, without losing its apocope. But by the way, what happened to Gabito, his irregular diminutive? "From the minute I was born, that’s what they called me, and I’ve always felt like that is my given name and that the diminutive was Gabriel…." (from his autobiography). •

The quotes in this article are taken from El Viaje a la Semilla/La biografía (Journey to the Seed/The Biography) by Colombian essayist Dasso Saldívar (Editorial ABC, Spain, first edition, 1997). The quotes (2) are from the French scholar Jacques Gilard, author of the prologues of three of the volumes of G. García Márquez, La Obra periodística (G. García Márquez, Journalistic Work, 1982). •