Gabo's novel tells the life
Feature granted the journalist Germain Castro Caicedo. It was published in El Espectador in Bogota, during the days between 16 and 23 March 1977.
born in Aracataca, Magdalena, in 1928. Famous novelist and short story writer universal. Author, among others, the following books: One Hundred Years of Solitude, The Autumn of the Patriarch, Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Love in the Time of Cholera, Strange Pilgrims, Love and Other Demons, and The General in His Labyrinth . Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982.
"Gabo" tells the romance of his life
- What feelings haunt him most throughout his life?
- "I've always had the impression that I'm missing the past five cents. And that's the impression remains real. I mean, I always thought ... And I thought: Is it real! Is that I am always missing the last five cents. If I wanted to go to the movies, I could not because I lacked the past five cents. The movie was worth thirty-five cents and I was thirty. If you want to go to the bulls and weight worth twenty, I had a weight of fifteen. And whenever I have the same impression ... And the other impression I got was always the leftovers everywhere. I always felt that if I was invited to a party by the commitment that he had a friend who went without me, or a person without me going, and then, however, had to invite me and I could not find never what to do with your hands. And that's the big deal, the big problem of all is timid hands. You do not know what do with them. So I have this impression yet so we always try not to be but with friends. Because with my friends I'm absolutely sure that no leftover. So I will not ever cocktails, I will not ever openings, not go to parties crowded, because whenever I have the impression that envelope.
The impact of Bogotá
-reading some of his stuff is possibly an entry into puberty was very violent, in the sense that at thirteen he came to Bogota: What is that feeling you get from a cultural nation like Costa, a nation as different as Bogotá? How do you remember this coming?
-First Today in 1976, it is difficult to imagine what it was Colombia in 1943, which is the time that that you're talking about. I think there were many different Colombias. And I think that Bogota had the impression that was Bogota Colombia. I reasoned that this course now. Account but do one thing at that time, if you wanted to aim for a scholarship, and I was in Barranquilla, I had to come to Bogota to take a test, ie a competition. Across the country had to come to that. I was born in a house where a brother every year. It would be very difficult to make the accounts but if I had at that time thirteen years, is almost certain that I had eight brothers ... Then I realized that there was no other solution but to leave. That is, it had two advantages: one for oneself, which was saved by swimming. And one for the house, which was to download a bit of that weight I had. So I decided to come to Barranquilla to Bogota to present scholarship consideration. If this was 1943, I had to have thirteen or fourteen. I say this because you're not sure what year I was born. No one is quite sure of that. Then my father got me the ticket to Bogota. I came on a ship of the Magdalena River. Usually spent eight days. But if the boat could be varaba fifteen, sixteen ... That never knew. In addition to one did not mind if the varaba boat. That was a party. Then I came. I guess there was a very rough trip, should be ten days. We arrived in Salgar. He took a train. A train was going up. It seemed he was going with the nails holding it all morning.
cold sensation
- Did you know the mountains?
"Never in my life seen anything that had more than three meters above sea level. Then the train was as gripping and nail in the afternoon entered the Sabana. Do you know that was a marvel to enter Savannah on a train that had trouble climbing, breathing with difficulty and suddenly began to run like a horse? Iba
stopping at stations where they sold some chickens yellow snow, and chips. Some things absolutely extraordinary that one could not imagine. And there was cold. The sensation of cold is one thing that you who were born here, can not imagine. It is inconceivable for one thing. And then the feeling of height, for I could hardly breathe. Because the Coast one has the feeling of drowning. Oxygen. So here I found that I could hardly breathe. And it was absolutely wonderful to see that Savannah, which for me remains one of the most extraordinary places in the world. Now, finally, there was a problem. And a very serious problem: it was Bogotá.
"Not one woman on the street"
"I came only to Bogota in 1943. At four in the afternoon. A Savannah Station. Do you know that I have done many interviews and I have always wondered what the city has impressed me most in the world? I think I know almost all the same and I always answer: Bogota! It is the city that most impressed me and I have been most marked. My arrival in Bogota. That afternoon. A gray city. All Cinderella. With rain, with a tram while crossing at the corners and was flashed around the world crashed. All the men were dressed in black. With hat, and there was no one woman ... There was a single woman in the street!
You know that the coast this is very serious. For one to thirteen years to see a city where there is a single woman.
"Everyone was lined ...
-Lined in black. And not a single woman ... So I brought a trunk and asked who I had the trunk to a pension Tenth Race. Tenth Race was a very narrow alley. (Incidentally, I say: do you know that I realize now that this so long that I almost am an old santafereño when I talk about it? The twists and turns the world). Then they told me it had been in a "slut." I grabbed a Zorrero going to take to the street 19. The trunk had been running. I tried to run back and could not breathe. It was something nobody had warned me: it was not possible to run at altitude. Well, we got to this small pension. Coast was a pension, because the coast at that time was always seeking refuge from the coast. That is, me anywhere in the world after I have been as foreign as in Bogotá (at the time). I remember the impression that night ... The evening was very sad in Bogotá. The transition from day to night that I was never very well defined. For us it was never clear when day and when it was night. Then I remember well the pension ... Was one of those bedroom houses a courtyard with geraniums and jasmine. And they were around the patio doors, no windows, one was tightly closed and put in a safe ... And the first night I got into the covers gave me the impression that somebody, for making me a joke, I had wet the bed. And I hit a scream and a coastal side had said, "is that this is so. We must learn to sleep in Bogotá. This is not the same thing there. It's very hard. It is a course to which should resign. " So ... Now, this is another story: this was the arrival ...
The trauma Bogotá
"The important thing is the first contact. The trauma for those who read his stuff, we find that always follows throughout his life.
"Yes, because ... I do not know if it is a trauma. But I mean something else: I remember well my first arrival in Paris. I remember the first arrival in Rome, the first arrival in New York ... yes, but none has impressed me as much as ever in Bogota ...
"But returning to the subject, I went to the scholarship Zipaquirá. How did the scholarship to study at the National Lyceum Zipaquirá?
"No, but what happens is another thing I have always enjoyed my good fortune. Note that in this voyage, the Magdalena River was a feast: there were orchestras and coastal students, especially those who had experience, knew it was a matter to be handled quite well. It was quite pachanga. I do not remember much detail, but the fact is that when we were on the train to Bogota Salgar a man approached me, I clearly remember was a very serious man who came on board and who was always reading. I never have had a great admiration for people who read a lot, "approached me and asked me for you to copy the lyrics of a bolero that we were singing on the boat. He copied the letter and showed a little music. He told me was that I had a girlfriend in Bogota and was sure this bolero was going to like much. Think, if I was 13, 14. I do not know how much he should have, but for me it was a very serious man. And much more serious because he was wearing a vest. Because for people who use coastal BC is the most serious in the world. And this man wore a vest and I fervently you copied the bolero ... I showed it.
"The next day, after the experience of the wet bed, had to queue outside the Ministry of Education, which was where he was then the Café Automatic, on Avenida Jimenez with fifth, more or less. Look, I got up early and I do not know, would be eight, nine o'clock, and already the queue was very long. This line was to register for the scholarship competition tests. At noon of the day was getting a little to the door of the building and soon passed this gentleman to whom I had copied the bolero and I said, "What do you do here?". "I'm queuing for scholarship exams," I replied ... "Do not be stupid, come with me," he said.
I went to his office probably skip the queue and was the National Director of Scholarships. He said "pa 'where you want it?". I told him to San Bartolomé National, which was then most prestigious school that was in the country. He said, "no I can give to St. Bartholomew for all this that I have here, showed me a stack of papers are recommendations of ministers and important people. But why do not you do something?, Go for it Zipaquirá very good school and is very close to here. " The first time in my life heard of Zipaquirá, which was very good school.
"All the young poor
" When I met you a couple of weeks ago talking about Zipaquirá and I was impressed that the first image that came from that school it was that there were assembled all the young poor the world. Did you feel marginalized?
"No, no. On the contrary. One of the places where I had the impression that was left over Zipaquirá. Because there were all those who sobrábamos. Look, there are six years of my life that I remember little because they are slightly injured. I found that in Zipaquirá were all the country's poor. We were all equally screwed.
Zipaquirá "I went to look for the year and the date you finished high school. The game is sitting in December 1946. I lost the trail between the year 46 and year 48. And that got me thinking one thing: how you caught him on 9 April? What was doing at the time of "The Bogotazo?
-after high school I came to Bogotá to study law because it was the only profession that was just evening classes. I would have liked to study architecture, engineering, anything else, because at that time was also studied what could be. But the only one allowed to study and work was right. That's why I studied law at National University. Camilo Torres was ...
encounter with Camilo
- In what year were you with Camilo Torres?
"Well, in 1947. And I remember perfectly the first leg of the seminar Camilo. Simply Camilo because one day did not go to class ... I asked, "What happened?", "For which Camilo got a cure." And the next day said no: "That's mom caught him at the station and took him home!". Then I went to see something like Camilo ... lived on the street, was 20, 22, something well. I found it in your library. With a poncho. I do not forget: I was with a poncho. In a small library in the house of his parents. I was very surprised ... I had two impressions, having tried Camilo much: first, to have a religious vocation. And secondly, he had political ambitions. Then I came home and said, "Hey, Camilo, what happened? "And I said," man is serious, is a vocation very old and very serious. "I remember he told me one thing:" the most difficult step he had to give, it was telling that to the bride . But this is already solved y. .. My mother stopped me, I did not want to go to seminary. But this is a fact and there is nothing to do. "I was distributing books among his friends. I gave" A Brief History of the World "by HG Wells, a paperback, the one that existed at that time in Castilian . Very simply, without pasta. It's a shame that I keep this book ... And I was convinced of his vocation Camilo. And indeed it was a matter of a week and managed to convince her family that she should leave, and left.
The story of little thief
"Then, several years later, I was at his first mass in 1959 or 60 I spent all year in Bogotá when he headed the office of Prensa Latina. There at that time I never forget a story because I was never married and then came home Camilo, and one day we asked a favor: it was that we kept in the house to a thief that he was protecting. A burglar who drew things and Cameron was keen to protect the one thing that is not your funny: The guy served his sentence. Out into the street and the police took what he had, and returned to meter. It was a kind of persecution. Blackmail. Then
Camilo was looking for a house where this man that the police did not pursue this prosecution. We took him. I went to work and the thief was watching it. And we had a story that I've always considered a wonderful story, it somehow seems to me the Old Man and the Sea, Hemingway:
-counted one night went to a house where there was a beautiful refrigerator . He decided to take it himself, without awakening the people who were in the house. He managed to lower it down the stairs. With great effort he managed to get it out. He pulled it out to the garden. I went by Wall Street. We took to the streets. Managed to accommodate the bus stop. And I was four. Five. And he was waiting, waiting did not know why, because I had no contact, no coordination with transportation. And as it was approaching people were queuing for the bus and he had his tail with your refrigerator. At one time they could take no more, and at sunrise and left the refrigerator and people lined with refrigerator, until the masters of the house rose, they noticed the refrigerator was missing and found him at the bus stop of buses lined up.
This type led us Camilo and lived in home. And if we gave him a shirt to give a certificate on it so that the police did not take him away. And one day she left the house and never returned. Some two or three days the maid of the house opened the newspaper and saw a picture and said: "These are the shoes of the master." It was a dead man who had my shoes on. And it was actually the little thief who had been killed. I know that Cameron was, picked up the body, made the funeral and then I found a totally different Camilo, who said: "All this I was doing a charity. This can not continue. The problem is not charity." And that was the word but I realized that day included Camilo that the problem of thieves who exploited the police could not be resolved with charity but with the revolution.
-In one story, his friend Plinio Mendoza Apuleius says that on 9 April you went to the board in which he lived, and when he found, was in flames. And they had to grab to keep out to get something he had written. What was that?
"This board is important to me because it was where I wrote my first stories ... I remember vividly how it was. I had already written two stories here, when it appeared in the supplement "Weekend" by El Espectador, a letter from a reader, the reader always, all ages, saying things that supplement but did not publish established writers and instead the country was full of young writers, young writers at large which are not published anything anywhere. Exactly what is said today, and exactly what was said fifty years ago, and fifty years earlier. Then Eduardo Zalamea published this letter and wrote then, "I believe that this reader has no reason. But if there's someone not have been fair, the columns of this supplement are open to him."
then got one of my stories in an envelope ... I should send a Monday or a Tuesday and I was absolutely sure he was going to publish, but I thought they would one or two months later. And the following Saturday I went out into the street, I went to a cafe in the seventh race and saw a guy who had opened the literary supplement of El Espectador and had the title of my story to eight columns. Then I did one thing that is wonderful: he did not have five cents for El Espectador, to see my story published. Then I ran for the board and told a friend, "I saw that my story is published," and said, "can not be because you had him on Wednesday and today is Saturday." "For it is published." And he did have five cents. We left. Buy The Spectator and was indeed there. And on Monday or Tuesday came out in "The City and the World" Eduardo Zalamea, a note saying he hoped readers would have realized that a writer had appeared that there was no news, and made a great praise for this writer. And the impression I had at this time was that I had gotten into a mess of shit, because I had no way back and had to remain a writer for the rest of my life. Foreign
everywhere
-Litter in Aracataca told them to outsiders who came when the banana fever. I listened and I've read that you feel everywhere abroad. Do you feel a litter?
"Look, is that they were called Litter Aracataca foreigners together ... I felt I did a stranger everywhere. The first part where I felt it was in Bogota. Then I have been abroad on any site.
I think the solution that I felt I was a stranger everywhere I would have stayed in Aracataca. I have told many times that Mercedes if I had been there probably would not be a writer. Municipal judge would, I get drunk every night, she would be married and have two children, one call and another call Rodrigo Gonzalo, as happens now. But also to have two mistresses fourteen children, whose names I do not know what would be, but not abroad and I would be quite happy.
"This alien I could play, very personally, as a misfit. When I see you travel, almost in anguish, without stopping anywhere, I think it does to fill any gaps or to resolve this mismatch that has from eight.
"That is quite complicated. I think I do not travel. I travel. For me that would be quiet. One thing I did not searched. I did not want, and I did not anticipate. People who know me well say that everything that has happened to me in my life I have planned ... There is one thing I have not foreseen and fame. I wanted to be a writer, and wanted to be a good writer, and wanted to be a very good writer, and wanted to be the best writer in the world. Because you can not be a regular writer if one is not meant to be the best writer in the world. Ie, you can write fairly well, if you do not intend on each letter to be better than Cervantes, be better than Shakespeare, to be better than Dante, be better than Sophocles ... Then I had done so by reason of honesty. That is, because if that was not my goal, then I was not honest. Now what I missed was that I did not know that goal meant fame. Then there's one thing I said. I would been happy if all my books have been posthumously, in the sense that it was saddled with all the books I've written. So would have liked to have known after my death.
"Gabo was born with eyes open"
-I read the first reviews that you sent from Europe to The Spectator, when he was sent to Geneva to "cover" the conference of the Big Four. And he sees in them that you are not allowed to be dazzled by Europe. Not left dazzled by the conventional things that continent. Perhaps the Old World laughs in these chronic ...
"No, I do dazzled! What happens is that I knew I could not leave dazzle. To clarify, I think what has happened is that things were happening I had them more or less expected. I have measured every stage. I since I have memory, I remember all I wanted to be was a writer. Never in my life I have been nothing other than a writer.
The suitcase full of money
"That's what you want and how realistic it is, I've found several things: his son Rodrigo is very reminiscent of his mother once said," Gabo was born with eyes open ". Speaking of his wife, she said: "Gabriel has always gotten what he wanted. Until marriage. When I was thirteen, his father told him, I know with whom I'm getting married. At that time there were more than acquaintances ...". Then he remembers the honeymoon 18 years ago, when on a plane you said: "I'll write a novel that will be called La Casa" (house of grandfather) and then "I will write one of a dictator." She remembers you also said, "at forty years I will write my masterpiece." concludes this they believe in yourself, your family has lost to the thrill of a surprise. And Gonzalo, her son, tells the story of a man with a suitcase full of money. How is it?
"Yes. In Mexico, for 1965 could be, some were my children need I could not meet ... I warn you one thing: that I'm not going to make the story of misery, because I do it in the sense that I always missed the past five cents of which we spoke last time. But I never missing the past five cents for whiskey, for example. So we were very poor, and we were so fucked up, and we did not eat, but we always had whiskey. This is important from a moral standpoint, because you do not let sink ... Then do not remember when my kids wanted something, before One Hundred Years of Solitude "and then I said:" We can not, but I promise you one thing: that one day come to this house a man with a suitcase full of money. "They got used to hearing me say these pods. They were very quiet.
to me probably forgot me, and probably they forgot them, and about five or six years later in Barcelona, \u200b\u200bwhen my books were being sold, the editor rang me and asked me if I accept that I liquidate the copyright semester in English money in cash. I said, "I have no problem. We are at the corner of the bank at ten o'clock. "And the man said," but try to come at ten o'clock, I do not want to be on the corner waiting. It's a bag of money. "And then I remembered what had told my kids five or six years earlier. I said "No! One moment change. We are here in the house at six o'clock.
next day at that time I opened the door and saw a short man with a blue raincoat and a suitcase . But with a suitcase as if it were to a hotel. My children had come from the school and called them. I said "come here". I told the man "open." He did ... See, was not much but there were tickets a hundred pesetas. Llena! And I told my children "Do you remember what I said?". And they said yes. "You told us one day come a man with a suitcase full of money"-I took it for insurance -.
- In how you dazzled by Europe?
"It was dazzling. He was scared. But the scare was not the arrival in Europe. It was out of Bogota. This was in 1955. After the publication of the story of a castaway it got bitch in Colombia, because it was the dictatorship of Rojas Pinilla. The newspapers were censored. And I have the impression, with twenty Twenty-five years, that the dictatorship did not like the story of the shipwreck. The fact is that if anything, was decided in The Spectator that I was special envoy to Geneva to the Conference of the Big Four. It was so unusual for a reporter to send him a special envoy to anywhere, I made a big goodbye party which lasted up to three or four in the morning, they woke up plane had already left, they got to Airport Roof which was a shed ice cream me said, 'as Paris plane was but no matter because it is decomposed in Barranquilla. So if you take the plane from Medellin, you can achieve. " I took the plane from Medellin, Medellin grabbed another plane was going to Barranquilla and effectively, the Constellation of Paris was out in Barranquilla. I boarded the plane and before they came out and dropped Cabineros so, the air, "Mr. García Márquez" Yes? "Around here, please. I went to first class, because it was distinguished traveler, special envoy of The Spectator, and in first class only had one passenger who was Fernando Gómez Agudelo. The plane made Barranquilla, Bermuda, Azores, Lisbon, Madrid, Paris. Agudelo Gómez went to Frankfurt to buy Colombian television. That is, all this thing is working here, where I was getting screwed, the Gómez Agudelo was buying on behalf of Rojas Pinilla I was driving out of here. That is the mess contradiction.
We sat down to drink drink: In Bermuda was over the drink and changed the propeller plane. Charged tragus to the Azores. Met to bebérnoslo everything. He returned to change the propeller on the plane in the Azores. Loaded drink. We arrived in Lisbon. They changed the other helix ... We had 46 hours from Bogota to Paris. When we got to Paris, remember that the pilots were told to Fernando and me three days we had been stuck there drinking gulp: "This plane is what the guy was because he did not leave the wheels." But in the end said, "I already went quiet." We landed in Paris and the next day I took a train to Geneva ... Probably now I realize I do not dazzled.
It
Aracataca grass
"When I was on the train saw the edge of way and I realized that the grass was just like the grass that was seen by the train window Aracataca. And I said, "so fly, so much drinking, the switch helix so that the grass remains exactly the same, remains the same Aracataca train." So I kept quiet. At four in the afternoon I arrived at Geneva. And I got the bill. I had been taught in El Espectador had to deduct six hours to see what time it was in Bogotá, I thought, "the eleven o'clock, El Espectador had not yet closed, so I have time to send the first wire of the Conference Big Four. " I arrived at the train station, got into the pension I saw in front. Came out and said, "and now, what the fuck do I do?" I started walking. I did not speak a word of any language other than coastal.
walking down the street and suddenly I saw coming a priest, who looked like a Basque priest. I stopped him and said, "Father, are you English?" and he replied in good Castilian, "Son, I'm not English, I'm German but I speak English. What's wrong?". Then I told him my drama: "Look, I have sent a journalist here and I have no idea where is the conference of the Big Four." I said, 'Look, you Get into a taxi and say take you to the Palais des Nations Together and there you solve the problem. "Upon arriving there saw that it was 0:30 in Bogotá, I saw the room, sat down and wrote the first cable. I sent out that afternoon and released. That day I became a special correspondent. The cable was invented everything went well ... But ... You know that was not the first time I passed that. Even before I had happened two or three things as a reporter. Even before El Espectador, one day, also under Rojas Pinilla dictatorship, had published the news that they had decided to divide the department of Chocó between Caldas, Antioquia and Valle. It was announced that decision and got a telegram from a correspondent for El Espectador in Choco, which said that given the government's decision, the people had taken to the streets and had declared a permanent manifestation of the entire capital, in the street in the rain and the harsh conditions, and were willing to continue that demonstration until the government retracted the decision to dismember the Chocó. That telegram arrived one day and it was published. The next day came another as saying that the rally continued and that they were fainting ladies, children under the sun heat wave of Chocó. They could not anymore, but they were willing to continue until death. On the third day, Guillermo Cano, director of The Spectator, he said, "you're going for Choco" and I said, "No, man. I do I go for Choco." "No, you go because those are very important." "No, I'm not going Choco." And I said, "Go that there are very good black." That's what I thought a bit and this morning I decided to go.
The dismemberment of the Chocó-They were
Catalinas, remnants of war, they did Bogotá, Medellín, Quibdó. They had no chairs, but they carried a load and was sitting in bundles of brooms. Arriving in Medellin had a tremendous storm and Catherine got into between the storm and rain. Water entered the plane and then came and gave a newspaper, and you put the papers in the head to keep dry.
"And what I had terrified me was that the pilot was a guy who played baseball with me in Cartagena Matuna and I asked," Where you learn to drive this thing? " He said, "no joke, what do you think? If I've learned a lot of pods in life." And so we come to Medellin. He landed in Medellin, tanking, we Quibdó, fell into the river and was a totally deserted village at two in the afternoon. With a heat ... I went with a photographer, with John Smith. We began to explore those deserted streets, with that heat was overwhelming. Aracataca was the heat. Returned to live there. There was no demonstration. There was nothing! I asked someone, "where do you live so and so that is a correspondent for The Spectator?". I say where I came and found a long black, thin, lying in a hammock. Was taking a nap. I woke up and said, "Where is the permanent manifestation?". He said: "No, if there are no permanent manifestation. What happens is that I do not understand how it is possible that these people have so little civic spirit that they will break up, they will deliver, will end the department and no one has worried and then I decided to invent this permanent protest telegrams. "I said," Look, I warn you that I have not gotten into a Catalina that it rains, the pilot who was a pitcher in the Matuna and who has no idea this, to come out now with no demonstration. So I do the demonstration! ". We went to the governor and explain the situation. Then the guy's called a side. Sacaron schools, colleges drew, drew people and filled the square. And we started tell an old lady, you pass out, and then John Smith took the old lady fainted. They took out a student charged, Bill Smith took the picture ... This was returned at Catalina. It kicked up the real scandal. For the first time El Espectador published photos of the event permanent. The next day the demonstration continued. Send more photos, send more cables and the fourth day and the event was true. And people believed him, and actually fainted and fell exhausted by the sun, and the senators and representatives had been to Choco Choco capitalize on this event, and they were real speeches. In the next plane not only were all the senators and ministers, but were all journalists and ended up making a permanent manifestation of truth, rain, with ministers faint, so that each week the government decided that "in view of the Chocó extraordinary civic spirit and devotion and the heroism of politicians Choco, Choco will not be dismembered." I stayed, I did a full report on the Chocó, where it was demonstrated that an abandoned apartment, that people were in a terrible economic situation and had to do something for them. And a week Chocoanos were writing letters to The Spectator saying that I was miserable, that I was treated like a prince and had been told that they were starving and it was not true because they were fine.
Paris without five
cents
-back of this national reality of world politics, which is the jump that gives you in Geneva, following the conference of the Big Four, which way next?
"I went back three years later, because the Geneva ... I thought that came to Geneva and stay there a few days and return to get married, it was a bit exaggerated. Then I went to Rome and was in Rome for about eight months or a year, and then I went to Paris. Once back, and when I was in Paris, I remember Apuleius Plinio Mendoza met in a cafe and he read Le Monde and suddenly I said, 'here is a story that can be very serious for you: that closed El Espectador. I said, is the best news I can give in life, because now I have to return to Colombia. "
" I sat down to write, El Coronel No One Writes. (Because this is a story that biting its tail). I knew the story of my grandfather who was a lifetime waiting to send him a pension of civil war veteran.
When my grandfather died, my grandmother told me, "your grandfather died waiting his pension of veteran, but I do not worry because you will come. And if you never saw them come to your children. "
A pension that never came. Then I thought that this could be a story for a comedy. But when I was in Paris, I started writing comedy colonel who expected his pension, and every day drew money from the night table, down, ate in the corner, up until one day I did well, and scratched and no longer had not a penny. So what began as a comedy it turned upside down and I started writing really was. Because I started to send SOS to friends ...
"This was a seventh floor with no elevator, and I fell, I saw that there was no letter and then up and added a new page in the story he was writing. But what is amazing is that as he was writing the story I came to realize that I never would the letter and that I never would answer the friends who had attended. Then there was a time when I was writing it corresponded exactly with reality. And so I believe, against the advice of all the critics, the best book I wrote: that is, if I have written a masterpiece, the masterpiece is The Colonel has no one to write, because I lasted writing the daily reality as was happening.
Italy boots
"Now, before starting the interview, talking about their boots made in Italy, the French shirt ... It is known moreover that you are a great wine taster. Is not revenge is so tight these years? Did not come to life as revenge on April 9 in stores of cloth?
"Make no mistake. Every year, since you're born until you die, are narrow. The story of my boots is that when I come to Rome, where I have good friends, journalists ask me what I am going to Rome, and as I am going to Rome for strict issues of my private life, I tell them I'm buying boots. And I'm going to Paris and buy shirts. And I'm going to London and buy pants, and my son Rodrigo, when he sees me, tell me what you said a moment ago. That I saw as poor with rich clothes. Now, what you I mean this is not revenge. At the beginning it was a kind of revenge. That is, when I returned to Paris, fifteen years after this story that I had my first arrival there, I urge for revenge. I arrived with enough money to go to restaurants which had not gone. I was the first day, and the second and third, but the fourth day you realize that's bullshit. That was a good restaurant where I was before. A Greek restaurants in the Latin Quarter.
A small bistro, where the lady who did a good steak, he did a good fries. There is no revenge as possible with life. That is, all the way life is always narrow and there is nothing to do.
The weight of a novel
"Well, I relate this time in Paris with the time in Mexico, many years later, in which you wrote One Hundred Years of Solitude, because you had to quit a job in an advertising agency to devote himself to writing and had a very difficult time. His wife recalls that have not been the case all times of their marriage, but that. And I was struck by an anecdote, when you finished writing the book. He went to the mail to send the package to Argentina and I do not know if the freight was to ... Remember that time?
"But not as bad as being told. What happens is that One Hundred Years of Solitude weighed more than you imagined. Look, One Hundred Years of Solitude I wrote it in Mexico in 1965, 66, 67 ...
From 65 to 67. It was a great time. That is, an era that was not easy because we had no money, but instead a very good time, because I was writing like a train, which is the best thing that can happen to a writer. So when I saw Hundred Years of Solitude came and no one stopped it, I told Mercedes, "you will take charge of this matter." She, of course, did not think twice. It is strange that my children now, I ask at this time and they remember me as a man I was locked in a room, which never left ...
And I had the impression it was a human being more human and sociable in the world. And now I realize that for eighteen months did not leave the room. But I remember I went once. I went once when Mercedes told me there was nothing to do. Had already reached the bottom. Then I had a car and took him to the pawnshop and pawned him and brought him a silver Mercedes and said, look, here's to ten years ... And it lasted three months. And still writing. I remember at the halfway house owner called Mercedes and said, "Lady, you owe me three months of home." And Mercedes covered the phone and said, "how long did it take to finish the book?" and I said, "as six months." And then she said, "Look, sir, not only owe three months, but we owe him six more." And then the guy said, "and within seven I pay for everything?" and she said, "yes, all" He said, "if you give me your word, I have no objection to wait." And Mercedes covered the phone and I said, "What word?" And I said, "my word of honor." And you know that at seven months and we will pay for everything? Not Hundred Years of Solitude, because I finished, and within a month, bringing such perrenque in hand, I went to work in advertising after we pay all that. But when I finished One Hundred Years of Solitude, I had written the editorial in South America and had asked me ... South American Publishers wrote to me that I had read all my books and were interested in reeditármelos. And then I replied saying that he could not because he had commitments to other publishers. But instead, in September will complete a book in which I had great faith. And he had no objection to give it to them. And then they told me very well, they agreed, they hired this book. He was hired and sent to me the contract five hundred dollars in advance. And I finished the day we went to e-Mercedes and me. Were seven hundred pages. Then weighed it and said it cost eighty-three pesos from Mexico to Argentina, and Mercedes said, "we have but forty-five." I said, "very easy", I left the book in half and said, "PESEM this book up to forty-five dollars." Weighed up to forty-five, leaves removed and who cuts meat. When it came to forty-five dollars I took these leaves, wrapped, and sent them will get the rest. Then we went home and Mercedes took the last thing he needed to pawn. It was warmer than I used to write. Because I can write under any circumstances, least cold. The dryer used for the head and the mixer was used throughout life to make fruit juices for children and the children were growing up and no longer needed ...
It was with that at the Monte de Piedad and gave him fifty dollars.
The fact is we came back with the rest of the novel to the email: the weighed and said, costs forty-eight dollars. Mercedes paid her fifty dollars, gave two dollars and I realized, when we left the green mail was pissed off and said, "Now the only thing missing is that the novel is fucking bad."
and sea ice
"Speaking of work, there is a border between reality and imagination, or creation. And the first thing that occurs to me to ask is on the ice. How far this picture of the ice and when he began his imagination?
"I have the impression that, until the time I wrote One Hundred Years of Solitude, had the idea to somehow start a book, a story, a novel, with this episode of the ice. Moreover, the character of the old man takes the child by the hand, is a constantly recurring character in my books. In Leaf Storm, my first novel, the principle is exactly that of a child to wear a dress of green velvet, which pinches a little, that push in the legs and take him to see dead. That is exactly the image I remember my grandfather took me to church on Sundays. And I always had the impression that he was cheating a bit, because through all my books, my stories, there is an old man who takes the child and takes him to see a dead man walking and takes him and takes him to the movies. .. My grandfather took me to the movies and I always had the impression that they had arrived at exactly the kernel of the problem, until I came to One Hundred Years of Solitude, which leads him to discover ice. And it was exactly the point where I had been trying to get since I was, like, had ... four or five years. I did not even know about I met the ice.
-Jumping
perhaps, but continuing with his work in The Autumn of the Patriarch is always an ambassador of the dictator behind. And this dictator gives her all, to the sea. So I believe that a person fairly read, it finds you at the time. And is it an autobiography. Why he gave the sea?
"No, let me go back a little. Is that what happens is that The Autumn of the Patriarch is already part of my memories encrypted. I called a lot of attention ... notice that long ago that I did not read critical articles about my books. When he appeared Hundred Years of Solitude and there was an avalanche criticism, at first with great anxiety natural and perfectly justified and understandable, I rushed these criticisms, to see if they liked or disliked. Critics
parasitic
"And then I realized that the critics did not care much if the book they liked or disliked it because, at that time were trying to say what was the book I was writing later. That is, critics are a kind of parasitic professionals for self determination and no one makes the appointment, have become intermediaries between the writer and reader. That is, the writer takes the trouble of trying to communicate their experiences, to send their work to the reader and is on the way there are some men who do not let that work go directly to the reader but they say, 'Wait a minute. You are not able to understand what this man meant to them. We are going to explain. " And then enter a total desexplicación problem. It's very particular. I noticed especially in One Hundred Years of Solitude. When I realized that I began to read no more critical. Especially since I noticed that not only trying to say what he said in One Hundred Years of Solitude, but what would keep saying. Then there is one thing that caught my attention by some critics regarding the Autumn of the Patriarch, is that some critics said that One Hundred Years of Solitude was a very good novel. Which the author recounts his experiences there, because the author draws on his memories, evocations of a world that knows very well, in which he lived, which has been immersed all his life, and instead in the fall Patriarch is lost, like the book, the book is in the middle of the road. It is a book frustrated, because it deals with a dictator and an atmosphere of dictatorship of the Caribbean that the author has never lived and never known but has second-hand references. To me this seems a point example of what critics are donkeys. For One Hundred Years of Solitude is a book written with experiences of my parents, people I knew as a child, folk tales, things that I've been told I have news through newspapers, I made inquiries of certain episodes. That is, few experiences made by others. Instead, The Autumn of the Patriarch, is a book written entirely encrypted personal experiences. They are probably my memories, or part of my memories. And the critics what they had to know, or what they had to decipher, if crackers be as effective as they claim, is that probably the whole episode of the dictator who sells the sea and the dictator who is lost for lack of sea carries a little history of which we spoke just now, Aracataca Boy, Boy Barranquilla than twelve years comes to town stranger and more remote points, which is a gray city, a city Cinderella, a cold city, with trams in sparking corners, with men dressed in black, fully loaded streets of crowds, where there is not one woman, and above all, a city where there is no sea. I have the impression that this is probably a more correct interpretation of the whole episode of the dictator who sells sea. Because then I have another impression, that the great trap we can fall, not only critics but the reader is to believe that Autumn of the Patriarch is a novel by a dictator. If anyone is curious to read it with another key is, instead of thinking of a dictator, think of a famous writer, probably the book that much more understandable.
"There are no original songs"
"He comes to me now the image of a dialogue that you had in Lima, where he remembers his five years and was a frightened child in a corner of the house, sitting in a banking, at six o'clock, and did not move from there because he said that if he did, the ghosts were going to do something ...
- Do you know that this is an image of myself over there in the litter? The Litter as you remember, is a monologue for three voices, to put it in some way, a grandfather, his daughter and his grandson around a body. If you think carefully, is again the same structure and same dramatic approach Autumn of the Patriarch. And if you think with a little care and forgive me for once be pedantic scholar, which are the most embarrassing things I get in life, is again the same drama of Antigone trying to bury the corpse of his brother , which does not leave the dictator Creon buried. One issue that was addressed first by Sophocles, Euripides after, then by ANUIES; on Seneca, and then humbly in the litter. After humbly in The Autumn of the Patriarch. I say all this stuff and I make all this stuff, a scholar ... because otherwise the critics is the habit of walking looking for this theme is not original because it was treated by him. There are no original songs in the history. In the history of literature there are 36 dramatic situations of which nobody can leave. I think they are under 36. But what I was saying was that the issue of expectation around the dead man unburied, the body before which difficulties to be buried, is quite old. He was treated in the litter, was treated at The Autumn of the Patriarch ...
I did all this long, and all that pedantic tour of world literature, to tell you that the image of the child sitting, scared to death, is indeed a recurring theme in my books, my work, if I may say, with a modesty that surely the critics do not forgive me. It is an image that I remember well in the old house Aracataca: that the way they had found my grandparents from six in the evening to avoid having to keep an eye on me, not to be seized of this little boy in that big house, was that simply said, "sit in this chair and not move. Because if you move and you go to that room, there Petra aunt died. And here is Nicholas uncle died. And there Petronilla died. "And then I kept quiet based on terror.
And yet, the image of the frightened child, being myself, I remember, not that of the house of Aracataca, but when it was journalist in Bogotá, El Espectador Medellín sent me to make a report. I think the first, too. In Medellin, there were two landslides, a number of dead, and then I said, "you're going to Medellin researching what had happened, "and I remember it perfectly, I installed it on site and until then everything was fine." So far very well-thought-but I can not turn this thing, I have to go out and do what sent me to do. " And I went out and it was raining, and for me is a moment of great happiness that it was raining because it was an excuse that I put myself in order to defer the problem of having to go to find out what was what had happened. And I remember perfectly to myself and at this time was 23, 24 years and seeing that it clears as it clears I realized I had to face reality. And then I remembered when I was in Aracataca, sitting in his seat, fearing he was dead beyond the aunt who had died there and here's uncle had died the premium. And I realized that terror that was at that time in Aracataca and I had become the terror Specifically, in the abstract concrete terror of the dead came out, was the same as it was when I had to face for the first time a reality. And in that moment I realized two things: one, that at the time to face reality, everyone, absolutely everyone is alone. And two, everyone, absolutely everyone is afraid ... It was a great lesson for me. Because that day I realized something that the years have been enabling me, that morning when you wake up, everyone, absolutely everyone is afraid. It was a very important lesson, because for many years I thought it was just me. And when I knew everybody was afraid, I thought that probably no more afraid to wake up in the morning that the presidents of the Republic. And that day I kept waking up with fear, but I learned to having less fear of fear in the morning.
"Speaking of fear and loneliness, reading Autumn of the Patriarch saw that you were not afraid of death because the dictator, who is apparently only, he is accompanied by the body of Blessing Alvarado. It is the body and he then has lepers and cows at home. So that shows that their fear is not the dead but the loneliness ... How did Alvarado Blessing? What do you show her? Leticia Alvarado blessing and then Nazareth, who is a nun or a novice with whom he marries after ...
"I think that basically is one. Blessing Alvarado, apart from this, it has no mystery. She is the mother of the dictator. The dictator probably say it's a Freudian Oedipal character.
... I do not think it's an Oedipal character. I think it is the character ... A man who depends on a woman, so that basically is a metaphor for all men, like it or not.
Among the fame and power, flow
these two ideas that have come, that are the power and loneliness, which in turn are the pillars of his work, what is the relationship between power and loneliness? You seem to say many times: "Whoever comes to power is left alone." Or, "a man when it comes to fame is left alone." Then I want to ask if that is the problem of its imagery, or is your personal case. You said something an hour ago: "The only thing that was not foreseen was the fame." Then I find all this in a mix and I start to think of power and loneliness. The fame and loneliness ...
"Yes, actually I think, looking back, that between fame and power is a close relationship and the chances of isolation that both have. Ie insulation possibilities ... of loneliness in power. I think it's an illusion pretty old. And even a little mechanical. Refers to a person who has the power is somewhat at the mercy of those who report. Ie, contact with reality is not direct but passes through many intermediaries, in the case of power. I know quite valid exception is that of Fidel Castro, whom I know personally, with whom I have talked long hours ... It is an extraordinarily well-informed person. But Fidel Castro is always concerned to combat the loneliness of power. I do not know if you do consciously or unconsciously. But Fidel is constantly interested in obtaining direct information. One of the best informed men I know and probably one of the least lonely. Now, fame is nothing, because that I can speak from personal experience I. One thing I know, and I can say is that if something can lead quickly and seriously to loneliness, is fame. Because, after a moment, you do not already know where you stand. He no longer knows who he is or what they think of one. So we must learn to defend that. The only defense I have found and which I think effective insulation against the odds, the chances of solitude that brings fame, is to stay true to my friends. I believe that through this catastrophic thing happened to me to me, is that I become famous overnight, I managed to keep all my friends.
Men and
literature-literature and men ...
- Why Star Trek is a failure from the spectacular view from the standpoint of human interest? Why human beings do not care more Trek? Because they have not found living beings. Because no human beings have been found. If they had found a Martian, even "this" size, at this time the conquest of space would be the most extraordinary spectacle, and all humanity would be aware. Until we find another human being somewhere in the universe, the conquest of space will be a failure. It's exactly the problem of literature, the problem of art. While art and literature as they do not convey to readers, viewers, a life problem, a problem in humans, is a complete failure.
What the polls say
-A group of Arts students consulted with the people who bought The Autumn of the Patriarch. They wanted to gauge the national reality. Or the cultural level of the country through the survey. They found that 72 or 74 percent of people who have bought, not out on page 40.
"Me, in all modesty that I can, which is not much, but it is a little, I would like to do the same survey in the area of \u200b\u200breaders. To do the same survey with Don Quixote, with Gargantua and Pantagruel, or Sophocles' Oedipus Rex, for example. I wonder (and I have a curiosity and not a matter of answering this question) what page had passed, with those books. We are in Colombia, a country where the illiteracy rate, according to statistics is 40%. I believe-and have to prove the opposite-that the statistics are false. I believe that the rate of illiteracy in Colombia is almost 80 percent. So it seems to me perfectly natural that a novel with the cultural requirements of Autumn of the Patriarch, offers a challenge far greater than One Hundred Years of Solitude. Now: A writer has to take into account the rate of illiteracy among the readers to write their books? That is, does it say that lowering the level of cultural understanding of these books to the cultural level of the readers? Or do you have to write the book and think it should be and hope that readers eventually reach the cultural level of that book? I think it's the second position to be adopted. That is, the literary work must be at the cultural level that the writer considers to be be. And the same writer, and all writers, and all the people who feel their country and who believes that humanity must move forward, to work in the sense that readers, through internal acculturation, which will only be possible through a revolution, reaching the cultural level, to the point of understanding this work.
"Now let's take a ninety-degree shift to dialogue, I will think about their political position in his belief in the need of a revolution, but also in your bank account. That you are a very rich man who talked about a revolution. Most people find a contradiction in that ...
-Just Like Heaven much richer for a lot more talk of revolution. First, for a revolution in a country like this it takes a lot of dough. For even the revolution, in some ways is a problem of money. But there is no contradiction, moreover, between being rich and being a revolutionary, as far as sincere as sincere revolutionary and not as rich. Everything depends on the position where you are. Look, this leads to an ambiguity that exists everywhere and that is a misconception fostered, of course, by the capitalists. And is that revolutionaries have to be dying of hunger, because according to a definition that anyone was interested in United States, socialism is the distribution of poverty. No! I believe that socialism is the distribution of wealth. And when we try and / or want to make the socialist revolution, is not that we want those who have good houses and good cars and eat well, do not have good houses and good cars and eat well. But those who do not have cars, and those who do not have good houses and those who do not eat well, have good cars and have nice houses and eat well. I so far I have the luck and the ability to have good houses, a good house, good car and good food.
sacrifice everything
"I like the good life. And that I can be more revolutionary when it knew what it was. Because now I know what they are missing those who do not. And I'm willing to sacrifice everything. And I try to speak with as little ceremony as possible, but I'm willing to sacrifice even my life, because everyone knows what I know now. What is the good life. Now, this is easily said, but has many problems. I now had to be one of the richest men in Colombia. And I'm not one of the poorest. But I'm not as rich as the mainstream press and capitalism have tried to make believe. Because the writer is so open to any worker.
Five hundred dollars in ten years
"Probably no English-language writer has sold as many books as I do, so little time. Let me go back a bit. This is not a miracle happened: I published my first book in 1955, twenty years ago. For my first book I did not get a penny of royalties. My second book was The Colonel has no one to write. It was published in 1960. I had 500 pesos copyright. Then I published another and another, had published five books. From 1955 to 1965 in ten years, had received in royalties, 500 pesos. In ten years! That is, if you divide a month, do the math on how I get the monthly salary in ten years. Five hundred dollars in ten years, is how I get the salary monthly? Published One Hundred Years of Solitude. Then it was like the explosion of all my previous books. The most commonly sold when I published One Hundred Years of Solitude, was probably de La Mala Hora: seven hundred copies had been sold. Throughout the English-speaking America. Seven hundred copies! When the editor told me Argentina Hundred Years of Solitude would be published eight thousand copies, I wrote a letter saying it was a bit wiser, I was exaggerating and was seized. He published it in May 1967, estimating that between May and December sold eight thousand copies, sold them in three days, at the entrance to the subway in Buenos Aires. It was still the phenomenon. Then I started getting copyright gradually.
"Because one thing that the readers themselves do not know: it is, how is the structure of the publishing industry. Any reader, or anyone to whom I say that in nine years, Castilian has sold three million copies of One Hundred Years of Solitude, anyone who knows that in that same time Hundred Years of Solitude was published and translated in twenty languages, imagine that this is a huge amount of money. Now, do tell, because there are people having a great shame to talk about money. I have no reluctance to speak about money. For me money is not more than a tranquilizer nervous. It's kind of valium. That is, that's how to solve their problems is calmer nerves that is not how. There is nothing else. It is one thing absolutely material. It represents, is the symbol of labor. Now, anyone who will say that in nine years we have sold three million copies of One Hundred Years of Solitude, looks like that's a huge amount of money. Because generally the reader does not know who owns the book. Each weight that the reader pays for a book, is divided as follows: 50% for the editor, which of course bears the costs of publishing. 20% for the distributor. 20% to 10% bookseller and author. Of the ten percent come before tax is deducted and another ten per cent of the duties of the agent is a ten per cent well spent because the agent is the person who goes and fights the editor. Then we were that for every dollar that the reader pays for a book, the author was under eight cents. If you take into account that my book contracts are made in Argentina, Argentine pesos, and Argentina in nine years has been a devaluation, how much in nine years?.
"Two thousand percent. Pure fiction
"Then take a pencil and paper and see that it is a fiction of my copyright. (Let's go forward). One Hundred Years of Solitude "to speak only of a book has been translated into 21 languages. Data is a spectacular, extraordinary and unusual. But those 21 languages \u200b\u200bdoes it mean? Sweden, three thousand copies. In the Netherlands, five thousand copies. In Japan, where he was a success, ten, twelve thousand copies. The countries with the highest read my books are in Castilian, Latin America and Spain. (In Italy, the editor is four years late in paying royalties. That means that if tomorrow I pay them, are paying me interest on my copyright.) Another country where books have sold spectacularly, in the Soviet Union. There the first edition One Hundred Years of Solitude was made in the Journal of Foreign Literature, with a million copies. More about three or four hundred fifty thousand copies were made later. Also sold in two months, dramatically. The Soviet Union at that time paid no royalties. Now pay. Two or three months or six months, joined the international pact, by which pay royalties. But at that time were not paid. But let us see a case that is far more interesting: In the United States. There was One Hundred Years of Solitude "Best Sellers" in the main edition. That is, in the hardcover edition. It sold 19 000 copies. It has been a success, and success notable in paperback. It is selling far more than half a million copies. It is a record for the English language writer. But in paperback, there's something interesting: the contract the principal editor, which means that the author is not already in the top ten percent of the price of the book. But five per cent. And it has to share it with the main editor. Then, for each dollar of the paperback edition (which is money that is, a dollar), five cents is copyright. Two and a half of those five cents to the main editor. Two and a half cents for the author. Of which the United States is discounted by 30% in advance for taxes. And 10% for the agent. This means, simply and sweetly, I have to keep working constantly to stay alive. However
. Here again I want to make the tale of misery. "You've read the stories of my great mansions in the world? The descriptions are spectacular. And you know I leave them and never rectified? Do you know why? For I know that gives the rich a lot of anger. Because the rich makes them very angry that the poor are rich. Then I let the legends thrive. "You know I never had before in my life, from birth, a home to this year 1976? I'm dying of laughter and great fun when I read about my house in Barcelona. My house in Barcelona is an apartment rented by which paid $ 180 rent. (Which now I let my teacher Guillermo Angulo is Colombia's consul in Barcelona and is still paying $ 180 I could not afford if it were not so, because the consuls of Colombia, anywhere in the world could pay more $ 180 rent). That's my house in Barcelona. I have a house in Cuernavaca that are square meters of land with a bedroom. And a house in Mexico, which is a very beautiful house, an old house that I bought and restored it myself, working with the builders. But this does not tell anyone, because I I need to continue my reputation of a millionaire. Because it has been the case that I have to make a loan to a bank and have authorized me unsigned, without references, without guarantors of any kind. For that morning in the newspaper, had read that I was one of the richest men in the world.