24 May 2014

Paris Review: “Gabriel García Márquez, The Art of Fiction No. 69”

100 years of solitude
The more power you have, the harder it is to know who is lying to you and who is not. When you reach absolute power, there is no contact with reality, and that’s the worst kind of solitude there can be. A very powerful person, a dictator, is surrounded by interests and people whose final aim is to isolate him from reality; everything is in concert to isolate him. Gabriel García Márquez

A must-read interview for fans of the recently deceased Nobel Prize winner. I was a little disappointed there was no mention of Chronicle of a Death Foretold, probably my favorite novel by García Márquez, but the interview covers a lot of the themes and inspiration behind his work, how his passion for journalism and fiction influenced each other, and how he approached writing and the process of fabricating reality with only a pen on a piece of paper.

One of the most difficult things is the first paragraph. I have spent many months on a first paragraph, and once I get it, the rest just comes out very easily. In the first paragraph you solve most of the problems with your book. The theme is defined, the style, the tone. At least in my case, the first paragraph is a kind of sample of what the rest of the book is going to be. That’s why writing a book of short stories is much more difficult than writing a novel. Every time you write a short story, you have to begin all over again. Gabriel García Márquez

2 comments:

  1. One hundred years of Solitude is a masterpiece by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. The book covers the story of generations of the Buendias family and how to live. In starting you may find it puzzling. But as you read on, storyline become more clear.

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  2. Good book... keep-up the good blog...May I share an Interview with Gabriel Garcia Marquez (imaginary) in http://stenote.blogspot.com/2014/09/an-interview-with-gabriel.html

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