06 October 2006

Changes for "La Casa"

Colombian government to reconstruct García Márquez's birthplace:
El Ministerio de Cultura destinará 200 millones de pesos para la primera etapa de las obras a través de una licitación pública que abrirá a partir del próximo 17 de octubre.

La casa paterna del autor de novelas como 'Cien años de soledad' se encuentra ubicada en la población de Aracataca, departamento de Magdalena, en la costa Caribe.

El escritor colombiano, que obtuvo el galardón en 1982, actualmente vive entre la ciudad de México y la colonial ciudad de Cartagena, capital del caribeño departamento de Bolívar.
This week I was able to pick up a copy of El olor de la guayaba (which was translated into English as The Fragrance of Guava) at our one (tiny!) local bookstore. It's a marvelous little collection of conversations between Plinio Apuley Mendoza and Gabriel García Márquez (with photos), discussing the latter's life and work. In it, he says he attempted to write One Hundred Years of Solitude when he was 18, under the title of La Casa (but for many reasons, it didn't come out right).
PAM: What was your purpose when you sat down to write One Hundred Years of Solitude?

GGM: To give an integrated, literary outlet to all of the experiences that had in some way affected me during my childhood.

PAM: Many critics see in the book a parable or allegory of the history of humanity.

GGM: No, I only wanted to give a poetic consistancy to the world of my childhood, which as you know, occurred in a very large, sad house with a sister that ate dirt and a grandmother that saw the future, and many relatives with the same names who could never tell much difference between happiness and dementia.

PAM: The critics always find more complex intentions.

GGM: If they exist, they're unconscious. But it could also be that critics, as oppossed to novelists, don't discover in books what they can find, but what they want to see.
(This quick translation is mine.)

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