A signed, first-edition copy of 100 Years of Solitude by Nobel Prize-winning author Gabriel Garcia Marquez was recovered on Friday, a week after it was reported stolen from a book festival in Colombia, officials said.
The novel by the Colombian writer, who died last year, was allegedly snatched from a locked glass case last weekend at the International Book Fair of Bogota.
“The book was recovered in an area of downtown Bogota where art is normally sold,” National Police of Colombia Director-General Rodolfo Palomino told reporters.
He said the edition was retrieved after a “labored pursuit,” and police officers found the book in an abandoned location where they thought the theft suspects would leave it as they ran from authorities.
The book was one of just 8,000 copies printed in 1967 by an Argentine publishing house, and was on display in a pavilion dedicated to Macondo, the mythical town featured in the novel and other works by the author.
The volume belonged to book dealer Alvaro Castillo, who collects first editions by Garcia Marquez.
Castillo said that he would donate the book to the National Library of Colombia after an outpouring of anger over the incident.
“This book no longer belongs to me; this book belongs to my country... From the moment that so many Colombians condemned this action, the book belonged to us all,” Castillo said.
The collector had donated the text to fair organizers to commemorate the late author, who died at the age of 87 in April last year at his residence in Mexico.
Garcia Marquez, a founding father of magical realism, had signed it: “To Alvaro Castillo, the old book-seller, as yesterday and always. Your friend, Gabriel.”
The International Book Fair of Bogota is one of Latin America’s busiest literary festivals, and organizers estimated that about 433,000 people visited the event this year.
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