Gabriel Garcia Marquez and his homeland had a relationship as conflicted as any in the Nobel laureate’s twisting and impassioned novels. Colombia inspired and dismayed Garcia Marquez in equal measure, and the feeling was often mutual.
Nowhere is that ambiguity more evident than in the sweltering hamlet of Aracataca that was the inspiration for the fictitious Macondo in One Hundred Years of Solitude.
Since the author died on Thursday at the age of 87, residents and holidaymakers have been flocking to the zinc-roofed home where he was born and raised by his maternal grandparents until the age of eight, paying their final, tear-filled respects to a man who was a symbol of pride for a country long-torn by violence.
Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos declared three days of national mourning for the “most loved and most admired compatriot of all times.”
Still some in this impoverished Caribbean town regret, with not a little bit of rancor, that he did not use his considerable wealth and fame to help residents overcome their perennial neglect.
An aqueduct that Colombian officials have promised for decades to relieve frequent water outages has never been completed despite numerous ribbon-cutting ceremonies. And when Colombian authorities converted his childhood home into a museum in 2006, Garcia Marquez reviewed the blueprints, but did not donate a penny to its US$350,000 restoration.
“He should’ve thought more about his people and not left us on our own,” said Mariby Zapata, a 31-year-old dentist. “I guess he preferred fame and abandoned us.”
A few steps away, Robinson Leyva countered that putting the town of 45,000 on the map was generous enough.
“Of course he helped us,” the 49-year-old teacher said. “But officials here didn’t know how to take advantage of his influence.”
Some of Garcia Marquez’s mixed feelings stemmed from the way he was treated for his leftist political views. He fled the country in 1981 after friends and Colombian government officials warned him that the army wanted to interrogate him about alleged ties to the now defunct M-19 guerrilla group.
When he was awarded the Nobel Prize a year later, then-Colombian president Belisario Betancur attempted to quash the international backlash against the writer’s treatment by offering him ambassadorships in Europe. It was too late.
Garcia Marquez would always maintain a critical distance from his homeland, proclaiming himself a “wandering and nostalgic Colombian.”
Although he evoked his homeland’s beauty in his novels and visited frequently, he never again resided there permanently, instead spending his time in Europe and Mexico City, where his cremated remains are to be displayed at a memorial service today.
Aracataca Mayor Tufith Hatum says he hopes the author’s ashes are returned to his birthplace.
Colombian Ambassador to Mexico Jose Gabriel Ortiz said on Friday that Garcia Marquez’s ashes could be divided between Mexico and Colombia, but there was no official confirmation that the family has agreed to that idea.
Security was one reason why Garcia Marquez stayed away. As he chronicled in his 1996 work News of a Kidnapping, an account of several high-profile abductions ordered by cocaine kingpin Pablo Escobar, Colombia had fallen into a seemingly bottomless pit of political and drug-fueled violence.
“We’re scandalized by our country’s bad image abroad, but we don’t dare admit to ourselves that the reality is worse,” he said in a speech at the presidential palace in 1994. “We’re capable of the noblest acts as well as the most abject, of sublime poems and insane assassinations, of jubilant funerals and deadly revelry. Not because we’re good and others are bad, but because we all partake in both extremes.”
Gabo, as he is almost universally called in Colombia, tried to mediate a solution to the country’s long-running rebel conflict, but the effort did not go anywhere.
In death, he has had more luck, prompting expressions of praise and mourning both from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia and the Marxist insurgents’ fiercest enemy, former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe.
Still his lifelong friendship with former Cuban president Fidel Castro continues to rankle many in what remains one of Latin America’s most conservative countries.
Shortly after his death was announced, recently elected Colombian congresswoman Maria Fernanda Cabal, an ally of Uribe, tweeted an old photograph of the two under the heading: “Soon you’ll be in hell together.” It was later removed.
Whatever his ideology, Garcia Marquez always sought to strengthen the country’s democracy and bring about peace, the 91-year-old Betancur said in a telephone interview.
With less fanfare, he also taught several generations of journalists by purchasing the newsmagazine Cambio with money from his Nobel and by creating a foundation to train reporters and raise the standards of journalism across Latin America.
“What Gabo did was describe things that nobody had seen before,” said Andres Grillo, an editor at Bogota-based magazine Soho, who took part in two workshops with the novelist.
“If Colombia is known for something it’s because of him,” he said.
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was