A posthumous novel by Gabriel Garcia Marquez appears after “archaeological” work by his sons
A posthumous novel by Gabriel Garcia Marquez is published this Wednesday March 6 in Spanish, a work which had become “indecipherable” for the Colombian Nobel Prize winner plagued by memory loss at the end of his life, according to his sons Rodrigo and Gonzalo , who had to do “archaeological work” to bring together the fragments.
Colombian Nobel Prize winner for literature Gabriel Garcia Marquez outside his home in Mexico City on his 87th birthday in March 2014. AP - Eduardo Verdugo
By: RFI with AFP
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This unpublished short novel,
We will see each other in August
, is published as the tenth anniversary of
the death on April 17, 2014
of the author of
One Hundred Years of Solitude,
Love
in the Time of Cholera
and
Chronicle of A Death Foretold
, crowned with the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982.
About fifteen years before her death, “Gabo” began writing this book which tells the story of Ana Magdalena Bach, a woman who visits her mother's grave every year in August on a Caribbean island.
The protagonist takes advantage of her travels to leave aside her life of chastity and increases the number of erotic meetings with strangers.
In 1999, Garcia Marquez publicly read the first chapter, but refrained from publishing the rest of the work, which did not satisfy him, and contented himself with giving versions of the manuscript to those close to him.
Considering this work as nonsense and a “waste”, he finally abandoned writing it, explained Rodrigo and Gonzalo Garcia Barcha during a virtual press conference organized this Tuesday from Spain.
The “
book became a little indecipherable
” for the author in the last years of his life, marked by illness and memory loss, Rodrigo explained.
At the decision of his relatives, the manuscripts were kept at the Harry Ransom Center, a library at the University of Texas, in the United States.
A “dispersed” novel
The opinions of academics who read fragments of the work finally convinced the two brothers to bring together these tests in a posthumous book, published on the anniversary of the birth of their father, who would have been 97 years old this Wednesday.
“
When we read the versions, we realized that the book was much better than we thought.
We began to suspect that Gabo had lost the ability to write, but also the ability to read
” and therefore “
the ability to judge
” his own writings, Gonzalo explained.
Despite rumors that the novel had no ending, the writer's children and beneficiaries claim that he had fully developed the story of Ana Magdalena Bach before dying.
“
The novel was a little scattered in an indeterminate number of originals, but it was complete
.”
It was “
a work of archeology
” to put the parts together and come to an end, Gonzalo added.
Rodrigo assures him, there is no other hidden novel from the father of magical realism, so that
We'll See You in August
is the “
last survivor
” of his literary universe.
The Spanish version is published in several countries this Wednesday.
The French version will be released on March 13 by Grasset and the English version on March 20.
Also read: An unpublished novel by Gabriel Garcia Marquez announced for next year, ten years after his death
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