Guest guest Posted November 21, 2000 Report Share Posted November 21, 2000 << Farewell from Gabriel Garcia Marquez Gabriel Garcia Marquez has retired from public life due to health reasons: cancer of the lymph nodes. It seems that it is getting worse. He has sent a farewell letter to his friends and, thanks to the Internet, it is spreading. "If, for an instant, GOD were to forget that I am a rag doll and GIFTED ME WITH A PIECE OF LIFE, possibly I wouldn't say all that I think but rather, I would think of all that I say. I would value things not for their worth but for what they mean. I would sleep little, dream more, understanding that for each minute that we close our eyes, we lose sixty seconds of LIGHT. "I would walk when others hold back, I would wake when others sleep. I would listen when others talk, and how I would enjoy a good chocolate ice cream! "If GOD were to GIVE ME A PIECE OF LIFE, I would dress simply, throw myself face first into the sun, baring not only my body but also my soul. MY GOD, if I had a heart, I would write my hate on ice, and wait for the sun to show ... Over the stars I would paint with a Van Gogh dream, a Benedetti poem; and a Serrat song would be the serenade I'd offer to the moon. With my tears I would water roses to feel the pain of their thorns and the red kiss of their petals ... "MY GOD, IF I HAD A PIECE OF LIFE ... I wouldn't let a single day pass without telling the people I love that I love them. I would convince each woman and each man that they are my favorites, and I would live in love with love. I would show men how very wrong they are to think that they cease to be in love when they grow old, not knowing that they grow old when they cease to be in love! To a child I shall give wings, but I shall let him learn to fly on his own. I would teach the old that death does not come with old age, but with forgetting. So much have I learned from you, oh men... "I have learned that everyone wants to live on the peak of the mountain without knowing that real happiness is in how it is scaled. I have learned that when a newborn child squeezes for the first time with his tiny fist his father's finger, he has him trapped forever. I have learned that a man has the right to look down on another only when he has to help the other get to his feet. "From you I have learned so many things, but in truth they won't be of much use, for when I keep them within this suitcase, unhappily shall I be dying." GABRIEL GARCIA MARQUEZ >> --------------------------- Added info from Biff: Garcia Marquez, pronounced gahr SEE ah MAHR kayz, Gabriel Jose (1928-...), is a Colombian novelist. Many critics consider him one of the most important authors in the history of Latin-American literature. He won the 1982 Nobel Prize for literature. Garcia Marquez achieved international fame in 1967 with the publication of One Hundred Years of Solitude. This novel tells the story of the Buendia family, who live in the isolated jungle town of Macondo. The exploits of the family and the history of the town are often tragic. However, Garcia Marquez describes these events in the form of a humorous tall tale. The novel has been interpreted as a symbolic history of Latin America told with mythical characters and places. Garcia Marquez was born in Aracataca, Colombia, near Fundacion. In 1954 and 1955, he worked in Paris as a foreign correspondent for a Colombian newspaper. During that period, the newspaper published a series of articles by Garcia Marquez that angered the Colombian government. The government shut down the newspaper, and Garcia Marquez has lived outside of Colombia most of the time since. - Colombians greatly admire writers, especially poets. Many Colombian lawyers, teachers, and other professionals write poetry in their spare time. Maria (1867), a novel by Jorge Isaacs, became the first work of Colombian literature to win popularity throughout Latin America. It is a sentimental tale of love and death set in rural Colombia. Colombia's most outstanding writer today, Gabriel Jose Garcia Marquez, won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1982. His tales about life in Latin America combine fantasy with realistic description. - Recent developments. The most important development in Latin-American literature since the 1950's has been the sudden and unprecedented international attention enjoyed by novelists. The large number of important novels produced by these writers has been called the "boom." The original boom novelists were Carlos Fuentes of Mexico, Julio Cortazar of Argentina, Mario Vargas Llosa of Peru, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez of Colombia. All four use literary invention in their narratives to express their cultural heritage. They experimented with language and structure, often injecting fantasy and fragmenting time and space. The boom produced a style known as "magical realism," which blended dreams and magic with everyday reality. The most famous boom novelist is Gabriel Garcia Marquez, who won the 1982 Nobel Prize for literature. His novel One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967) ranks as a landmark of Latin-American fiction. The novel contains much historical fact, but the author also includes fantasy, extraordinary characters, bizarre events, suspense, and unusual humor. Garcia Marquez maintained his international reputation with such works as The Autumn of the Patriarch (1975) and The General in His Labyrinth (1989). Isabel Allende of Chile blended magical realism and history in her novels The House of the Spirits (1985) and Eva Luna (1987). --------- [From "the novel today] One group of writers created highly imaginative and inventive novels. In some cases, they modernized myths, fairy tales, and other old stories, or they created fantasy worlds. Latin American fiction gained recognition with a kind of novel called magic realism, which blends dreams and magic with everyday reality. The originator of this style was the Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges. The Colombian writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez wrote a classic of magic realism, One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967), about generations of a strange Latin American family. Manuel Puig of Argentina wrote Kiss of the Spider Woman (1976), about the relationship between two men who share a prison cell. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted November 21, 2000 Report Share Posted November 21, 2000 << Farewell from Gabriel Garcia Marquez Such a powerful writer, Important man Thanks for mentioning him , Gloria Love, Wim Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted November 21, 2000 Report Share Posted November 21, 2000 Thank you so much for forwarding this, Gloria. I've already sent it on to several friends. I hope he can feel all the love and gratitude converging on him. Love, H. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted November 21, 2000 Report Share Posted November 21, 2000 Hi..this has been brought to my attention, so in the interests of truth and justice and all that, is passed on to you. It is true that Marquez however is suffering from cancer. 'Farewell poem' fools readers Reuters MEXICO CITY (Reuters) -- A poem published in several Latin American newspapers this week and said to be a farewell ode by Colombia's ailing Nobel laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez turned out on Wednesday to be the work of a little-known ventriloquist. The poem titled "La Marioneta" -- "The Puppet" -- appeared under Garcia Marquez's name on Monday in the Peruvian daily La Republica. Mexico City dailies reproduced it on Tuesday and it was read on local radio stations. "Gabriel Garcia Marquez sings a song to life," read a headline in Mexico City's La Cronica, which on Tuesday published the poem superimposed on a photo of the novelist on its front page. More info here.....the LA times link on this page tells more about it: http://www.themodernword.com/gabo/gabo_news.html#Anchor-49575 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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