When García Márquez was born in 1927 in a small town not far from Colombia's Caribbean coast, the center of gravity of world literature was still in Europe and North America. But when he died at his home in Mexico City on April 17, 2014, Latin America, a "new continent" of literature, had entered the public and writers' eye. The fictional town of Macondo, always shrouded in rain and fog, becomes a new anchorage for lost Latin American stories.
April 17, 2024 marks the tenth anniversary of Márquez's death. The reporter from Nandu noted that the Spanish-language writer, widely regarded as the most popular Spanish-language writer since Cervantes in the 17th century, has another identity that is not so well known - journalist. When Márquez was in his 30s, he spent many sweltering summer nights on the couch of the Xinhua bureau in Havana, Cuba's capital, and also had some disputes over copyright issues during his visits to China. He once said that journalism taught him how to write.
García Márquez and his wife Mercedes Balcha.
He once slept on the sofa of Xinhua News Agency
On April 17, 2014, two anonymous family members of close relatives announced Márquez's death. In March of that year, he was hospitalized for nine days with lung and urinary tract infections and has been recuperating at his home in Mexico City until his death at the age of 87.
In 1948, when Márquez was 21 years old, he published his first newspaper articles as a columnist and editorial. In his book "Gabo the Journalist," which recounts his journalistic career, the author lamented that Márquez's hundreds of articles, columns, interviews, etc., "enjoyed only the prestige of the default, and to this day only a few readers, including his colleagues, read his articles."
The book about Márquez's journalistic career, Gabo the Reporter.
In the 60s of the 20th century, Márquez worked as a correspondent for the Cuban News Agency in Havana, the capital of Cuba. Due to the limited accommodation at the newspaper, he had to stay free of charge in the rooms of the Chinese staff of the Xinhua branch in Havana, which was in the same building.
According to media reports, Pang Bing'an, former vice president of Xinhua News Agency and the first journalist in Cuba, recalled his encounter with Marquez. Pang Bing'an mentioned that when he went to the 17th floor to meet technicians, he saw Marquez sleeping there many times, "At that time, his appearance was very ordinary, but I didn't expect him to become such a celebrity later."
In 1982, when Márquez won the Nobel Prize, Pang Bing'an saw his photo and immediately recognized the young man who had slept on the sofa in his room at Xinhua News Agency.
But Márquez's ties to China don't stop there. Nandu reporters noted that according to media reports, in 1990, Marquez visited China. Previously, none of Márquez's books published in China had been licensed, and he was disappointed and reluctant to license books to Chinese publishers.
In 1992, after China formally joined the Universal Copyright Convention, a number of publishing houses submitted copyright applications to Márquez himself, the Colombian Embassy in China, etc. According to media reports, the editor-in-chief of the publishing house wrote specifically to Márquez, "We pay you our highest respect across the Pacific Ocean, and do everything we can to shout 'Great Mentor!' just as you once did to your idol Ernest Hemingway on the streets of Paris...... We're sure you'll wave and shout in response to 'Hello friend!' just like Hemingway. ”
In 2011, a Chinese publisher won Márquez's rights auction and subsequently launched the first licensed Chinese edition of One Hundred Years of Solitude, which was reported at the time to cost more than $1 million.
"Journalism is the best job in the world"
On October 26, 1949, Márquez, a young journalist who had just entered journalism for a year, wrote a news article in which he reported his arrival at a monastery in Cartagena, Colombia, to see how the catacombs had been emptied before the building was demolished. That day, he saw the workers remove a strand of hair attached to the skull next to the altar. This scene eventually became one of the inspirations for his novel Love and Other Devils, which was published 45 years later.
In the preface to the novel, Márquez tells the story, and oral legends, popular memories, and his own experiences nourished his literary work.
"I'm a journalist. I've always been a journalist," García Márquez once said, "If I wasn't a journalist, I wouldn't have been able to write my book, because all the writing material is taken from reality." ”
Gabo the Reporter chronicles many of Márquez's famous journalistic works. In early 1955, he became famous for conducting a series of interviews with a sailor who had survived a shipwreck. Under the headline "Scandal of the Century", he also wrote a series of stories that unearthed suspicions in the death of a young Italian woman.
In July 1955, Márquez was posted to Europe by his newspaper, and shortly thereafter he published his first novel, Dead Leaves. The more well-known work "One Hundred Years of Solitude" was written in the mid-60s of the 20th century. The success of this novel has made readers see him more like a novelist who "happened to write news".
In June 1994, the New Ibero-American Press Foundation (FNPI, now known as the Gäbo Foundation) was founded, with Márquez as its president. According to the Gabbé Foundation's website, it was created out of Márquez's concerns about the ethics, rigor and narrative quality of journalism in Latin America. But in a 1996 speech, Márquez called journalists "the best job in the world."
García Márquez (second from left) at the Nobel Prize celebration banquet on December 10, 1982.
Mo Yan, a Chinese Nobel laureate in literature and once known as the "García Márquez of China," has always been a big fan of Márquez. He has publicly stated that for 20 years he has been trying to break free from the influence of the great Spanish-speaking writer.
Nandu reporters noticed that when the news of Marquez's death came in 2014, Mo Yan was "looking at his teeth in the hospital". He expressed his condolences on Weibo, "Thanks to this genius mind, he invented a unique novel, and he also invented a way to immortalize himself".
Many years later, in the face of the roaring tooth drills, many Chinese writers who collectively read "One Hundred Years of Solitude" in the 80s of the last century may still remember the day the great writer left.
Written by: Nandu reporter Xiao Yue