The Visual Arts, the Poetization of Space and Writing: An Interview with Gabriel Garca Mrquez Author(s): Raymond

Leslie Williams Source: PMLA, Vol. 104, No. 2 (Mar., 1989), pp. 131-140 Published by: Modern Language Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/462499 . Accessed: 14/02/2014 08:57
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ofSpaceandWriting: thePoetization Arts, The Visual MAarquez Garcia Gabriel with An Interview
tookplace inMay, wasan inwhich meeting, quez at hishomeinMexico Cityin 1987.Thefirst of drawings formalchat,duringwhichGarci'aMdrquezshowedme severalnineteenth-century some ofhisfiction. (I later and EdouardAndrethathe had used in writing Colombia byCharlesSaffray comp.and dir. in Colombia: FabulousColombia'sGeography, of thesame drawings founda newedition I returned topursuethedialogue, Arco,1984) Encouraged Litografia Bogotd.: EduardoAcevedoLatorre, ' in hand. and a taperecorder mycopyofFabulousColombia'sGeography toMexico Cityin Octoberwith RaymondLeslie Williams of Colorado,Boulder University The last timewe talked, you showed methedrawings you'veused in someof yourwritwith theenormous ing.I wasimpressed importance havehad in yourwork. thevisualartsapparently havetendedto emcritics As I supposeyouknow, in documents texts or written phasize theliterary intertextusincetheterm yourfiction, particularly misswe're has comeintovogue.Do youthink ality withour emphasison textuality? ing something docuGARCIA MARQUEZ: I don't use written for I typically drivemyself ments. crazysearching Then itaway. endup throwing andthen a document me anymore. I findit again and it doesn'tinterest Aridealized.Florentino I needto haveeverything iza's very conceptof loveis idealizedinLove in the that FlorenTimeofCholera.I havetheimpression
WILLIAMS:

MdrGarci'a Gabriel NobelLaureate with oftwoconversations 'THIS INTERVIEWis theresult

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Gabriel Garcia Marquez

ideal and tinohas a conceptof lovethatis totally to reality. thatdoesn'tcorrespond Wouldyousayit is a conceptof love WILLIAMS: he has read? theliterature takenfrom thebad poets. MARQUEZ:Fromreading GARCIA thebad poets.I think conceptfrom It is a literary imporis very thatbad poetry I've said somewhere by tantbecause you can onlyget to good poetry you What I mean is thatif meansof bad poetry. or Rimbaudor some Whitman showsome Valery it boy who likes poetry, to a youngsmall-town poets, tohim.So togettothese sayanything doesn't of all thebad poetry youhaveto getthrough first has the ones Florentino the popular romantics, read, like Julio Florez [a Colombian poet well theSpanish in hishomeland(1867-1925)], known notto cite tried and so on. I deliberately romantics, known. notuniversally becausethey're a lotofthem thesebooks and me reading ImaginetheJapanese of about JulioFlorez.Now I alwaysthink talking whenI write. mytranslators ofSolitude? SinceOneHundredYears WILLIAMS: ofthe No, sinceTheAutumn MARQUEZ: GARCIA of questions lists I'vereceived Sincethen Patriarch. is thatin and what'sstrange thetranslators, from thesame questions. mostof thebooks they're to thevisualartsand the WILLIAMS: Let's return inLove in the century of thenineteenth fabrication Timeof Cholera. by GARCiA MARQUEZ: I was aided considerably thosekinds albums, family photographs, portraits, of things. WILLIAMS: Wouldyousaythatyouhavea visual based on what things Do youremember memory? you see?

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132

An Interview withGabriel Garcifa Marquez

GARciA MI&RQUEZ: I'm notsure ifit'sexactly a visual memory. Attimes itseemslikeI'm always a little distracted, thatI'm a bit offin the clouds. At leastthat'swhatmyfriends, Mercedes[hiswife], and my children that butthen say.I give impression, I discover a detail thatreveals an entire world to me. The detailcould be something I see in a painting. cock in thisdrawing Perhapsthe fighting [fig.1] could givemethesolutionforan entire novel.It's thathappensto me.I'm totally just something passiveand it'slikea flash. WILLIAMS: Does thisdetailtendto be something thatyou see? It is alwayssomething thatIV GARCiA MIRQUEZ: see. It is always,alwaysan image,withno exceptions.A politician came and talkedto me overa X long weekendonce in Cuernavaca.We spentthe daystalking and having a good time.Butwhenhe lefton Wednesday, I gavehima sixteen-page synthesis of our conversation, and notone important matter was missing. It's notan extraordinary thing butrather an idea I've had fora longtime.That's why I never takenotes.I don'tforget things I'm interested in,and I forget things right awaythatdon't interest me. So I havea selective which is memory, quitea comfortable Now whenI'm correctthing.

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RaymondLeslie Williams

133

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134

An Interview withGabriel Garcl'aMdrquez

there and I hands.Maybethesethings were always never noticedthembefore. WILLIAMS: Did the drawings serveto describe Better thantexts could? everyday lifebetter? have GARCiA MARQUEZ: Better thantexts. Texts creata lotofpaper.The drawings arelikenotesfor ingthescenes. a while, WILLIAMS:Setting asidethevisualartsfor exownlife let'stalkaboutvisualimagesfrom your oftheMagWhataboutall thoseimages periences. inLove in theTimeofCholera?Were dalenaRiver thoseimagesfrom drawings? I had imGARCIA MARQUEZ: No, notall ofthem. portant experienceson that river in different periodsof mylife,and each experience projected I traveled later. different imagesthatI remembered timewhenI on theMagdalena Riverforthefirst the old. I left waseight or nineyears Aracatacafor to died and I went first timewhenmygrandfather the townof Magangue. I made the boat tripto becausehe was bornin Maganguewithmyfather and we of Bolivar, Since,a towninthedepartment I believeit was in 1936. wentto visithis mother.

inga book I makenotesinthemargins forcorrectinglateron thecomputer. The computer has been suchan important thing forme.It'sbeenone ofthe world'sgreatdiscoveries. If theyhad givenme a computer twenty yearsago, I would have written twiceas manybooks as I have.For example, I'm writing a piece of theater right now,and every afternoon I pullmywork outoftheprinter. I takethe pagesto bed, I readthem, and I makecorrections and notesin themargin. Now I havetheprivilege of making inthefinal changes pageproofs. Before, thewriter did a lastreading on thetypewriter and thereader didthefirst reading on theprinted page. Therewas a big distancebetween thetwo.Now I makethelastcorrection on theprinted page,as if it werethebook. WILLIAMS:How hasthis "something that yousee" in yournovels? surfaced GARCIA MARQUEZ: WhenI was writing TheAutumn of thePatriarch there was a pointat whichI was struggling a lot. I had a certain idea aboutthe palace,which wouldappearat thebegineventually ning,but I just couldn'tgetit right. Then I came acrossthispicture [fig. 2] in a book,and thephoto solved ofthenovel. mywriting It wastheimagethat I needed. WILLIAMS: It's the decayingpalace and cows in theopeningpages of thenovel. described GARCIcA And at thebeginning M*RQUEZ: ofevery chapter. WILLIAMS: Did you use drawings from nineteenth-century travel books in TheAutumn of thePatriarch and Love in the Timeof Cholera? GARCiA MARQUEZ: MoreforTheAutumn ofthe Patriarch thanfor theother books.I found theidea forsomestrange thosedrawings. imagesfrom For example, imagesofdead cockshanging from trees, strung up after beingkilled. WILLIAMS: Could you explainmoreabout what you did with drawingsin The Autumn of the Patriarch? GARcIA MKRQuEz: I had theidea ofcreating a total worldin TheAutumn of thePatriarch. It was a world thathadn'tbeenvery welldocumented. One would need to read a lot to findout something about thelife, about dailylife.Then,bychance,I came across thesedrawings when I was already writing thebook. So itwas similar to a lottery, yet likethatalwayshappensto me. I don't something knowwhy, butthetruth is,once I beginto work on a subject,things related to it beginto fallintomy

Figure 3

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RaymondLeslie Williams
WhenI madethetripthattimetheboat onlywent between Barranquilla and Magangue, in over twenty-four hours. WILLIAMS: It wentquicklythen. GARciA MARQUEZ: No, not really. It was a long trip.The boat was wood-fueled, as in the novel. Theyhad to carry thewoodaboard.Thatwaswhen they begancutting all thetrees down.Unlike today, in those days you could stillsee alligators in the river, and thatwasthebigentertainment, seeing the alligators at theedgeof theriver with their mouths open to catchbutterflies, or whatever [fig.3]. And thereweremanateeseverywhere too. What really impressed me was the way the manateesnursed their young. Those manatees arein TheAutumn of thePatriarch and Love in the Timeof Cholera. WILLIAMS: Do you recallanyotherparticularly memorable imagesfrom thistrip? GARCIA MARQUEZ: Whatimpressed methemost werethealligators, themanatees, and theanimals strung up, hanging, as in thesedrawings [fig.4]. WILLIAMS: Do you remember much fromthe otherriver trips?

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GARCIA MARQUEZ: I tookat leastfive or sixtrips downtheriver from to theCaribbean Bogota' coast whileI was in highschool in Zipaquira. When I wentagain, in 1943,the riverhad changed.The boats no longerranon wood,they ranon oil. The river itself wasn'tthesame as I had seenit before. WILLIAMS: The novelwith theriver, of course,is Love in theTimeofCholera.Whatdidyoudo with theriver there? GARCIA MARQUEZ: In Loveinthe Time ofCholera I created twotrips on theriver. The first tripis when Florentino ArizaleavesVillade Leyvaas a teI invented legrapher. this trip for a technical reason, to avoiddescribing theriver thesecondtrip, during because that would have been too weighty and wouldhavedistracted a lot.Consequently, I decided to showtheriver first thecharacter through himself, theidea beingthatthesecondtime aroundthe river wouldalreadybe described.I didn'thaveto distract thereaderwithtoo manydescriptions of theriver. relation oftherealriver yousawto theone from the
WILLIAMS: All in all, what do you thinkabout the

Figure 4

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An Interview withGabriel Garcia Mdrquez

ample,thatVictor Hugo and OscarWildecouldn't have been in Paris at the same time.It's not that theseareanachronisms or accidents butthatI had no desire to changea detailI liked justto makethe chronology function properly. This novelisn'ta historical reconstruction. Rather, itcontains historical elements used poetically. All writers do this. WILLIAMS:The physical spaceinLove intheTime of Cholera seems to correspond largely to Cartagena, Colombia,butsuddenly theCafede la Parroquia of Veracruz, Mexico,appears. I guess we need to talkabout a poetization of space too. GARCIA MARQUEZ: Right. The Cafe de la Parroquia couldbe in Cartagena well.The fact perfectly thatitisn'tis purely becauseall theconincidental, ditionsexistin Cartagenaforit to be there. As a matter of fact, thevery same Cafe de la Parroquia of Veracruz wouldbe in CartagenaiftheSpaniard who builtit had immigrated to Cartagenainstead of to Veracruz. It'sjusta matter of chance, theway it is was formywife'sgrandfather, who was an Egyptian who leftforNew Yorkand endedup in Magangue.Well, thatwasquitea case ofthepoetizationof space-a bitof an exaggerated one. Cartagena still needs a cafe like the Cafe de la

nineteenth-century drawings, as faras yourfiction is concerned? GARcIA MARQuEz: I waswellacquainted with the river back in thosedays. On the otherhand, the drawings helpedme realizehow,forbetter or for worse, artists idealizedeverything inthenineteenth In the drawings century. you findsome fantastic birds thatdon'texist, for example. Or these women, who are idealized[fig.5]. You see some beautiful womeninthesedrawings, which is thewaytheEuropeansoftheperiodimagined them. Indeed,they are magnificent drawings. WILLIAMS: Manyitems from thedailylifeof the periodappear inLove in theTimeof Cholera,besidestheidealizations found inthedrawings. These items seemto reflect a thorough of understanding whatwas in fashion at thetime. GARCIA I did studythose things MARQUEZ: of dailylifein thenineteenth a lot. But you century haveto be careful notto fallintomytrap, because I am also quitedisrespectful of realtime and space. WILLIAMS: Are you referring to the anachronisms? GARcIA MARQUEZ: Yes,becauseI don'twrite with historical rigor. Someonecould figure out,forex-

Figure5

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RaymondLeslie Williams
so I tooktheone from ParroquiainVeracruz, Veracruz,whichI needed in Cartagenaformynovel. WhenI'm in CartagenaI sometimes feel suddenly to a de la thedesire to go Parroplace liketheCafe I haveto go to thebarsin hotels quia in Veracruz. is missand places likethat,and I feelsomething to have the freedom to be a ing. How marvelous writer who says,"Well,I'm goingto put theCafe I want de la Parroquia where itto be."Every dayI'm writing I sayto myself howmarvelous itis to invent life,whichis what you do, althoughwithinthe strict boundsof somevery lawsbecausecharacters don'tdie whenyouwantthem born to,norarethey when you want. One of the most emotionalexI havehad as a writer relates to all this. periences It happenedin Love in the Timeof Cholera,with thefamily of Fermina Daza, whenshe is a child.I was creating all herlifeinsidethehousewhere she liveswithherfather and herspinster and the aunt, house is a copy of the one thatis now the Oveja inthePlaza Fernandez Negrabookstore Madridin I had on thefirst draft. Cartagena.I was working thegirl,herfather, heraunt,and hermother, but I just didn'tknow themother seemedextra. always whatto do with themother. Whenthey were at the dinner table,I could see thefather's faceperfectly, and I couldseethefaces ofthegirl andtheauntperbut the mother's I fectly, facewas alwaysblurred. imagined herone wayandthen another way, I made her like so-and-so,but she remaineda constant problemand I didn'tknow whatto do. She was ruining mynovel.The aunttookthegirlto school. The father wasn'teverhome.The maid took care of thehouse.Butwhatwasthemother supposedto do? She didn'thaveanything to do. And thensudone day, thatI was stuck denly thinking on a deadend road, I realizedthatwhathad happenedwas thatthemother had died whenthegirlwas born. And thiswasthereasontheauntwasthere, because thefather had brought herto thehousehold to raise thechildwhenthemother died. And thiswas the reasontoo thatthe maid took care of absolutely in thehouse.And also whythemother everything had nothing to do inthehouse.Itwasa precious experience forme,and it explainshowthecharacter of themother beganto livethevery I dismoment covered thatshe had died. So she is alwaysa presence in thehouse and thecharacters speak of her as someonewhohas died,whohas left hermark on herdaughter. This also explainswhythe father is so lonelyand has thetypeof personality he has. I

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I'm once I said, "I'm mistaken. solvedeverything trying to resuscitate a dead person.This woman died." That kindofthing happensin all mybooks. In some situationsyou don't have any more world. resources thanyourown interior relaWILLIAMS: How wouldyoucharacterize your tionshipwiththe exterior world,withthe cityof Love in theTime Cartagena, whenyouwere writing of Cholerain 1984? It was a veryamusingrelaGARCIA MARQUEZ: thatperiodin Cartagena tionship. To beginwith, was thebestyearof mylife,themostmature. WILLIAMS: Maturein whatsense? In thesenseof feeling an abGARCIA MARQUEZ: For manyyearsI had solute emotionalstability. to live, butthat onlyhad a vagueidea ofhowI liked to live, howto live, howI wanted and yearI learned in Carhow I havelikedto live.WhenI was living I wrote inthemorning, and that tagenaduring time, in the afternoon I would go out conscientiously theone lookingforplacesbecauseI had twocities: of reality one ofthenovel.The latter and theother can'tpossibly be likereality, becausea novelist can't literally copy a city.Have you evernoticedwhat Flaubertdid withthedistances between places in Paris? You findthattheFrench writers havetheir take walks that are impossible.It's a characters of space.Of course, one can sometimes poetization uselesstrip, eliminate a totally and I did thesame thingwithCartagena.Not onlythat,but whenI needed something from I took it to anothercity, Cartagena. WILLIAMS: And you took thingsfromseveral Caribbeancities,right? GARCiA MARQUEZ: Yes, I took a lot fromthe Caribbean.Therearedetailsfrom SantoDomingo and Havana,amongother That cities. waseasy, because thecitiesof theCaribbeanhaveso muchin common. As forVeracruz, Love in the Time of Choleracould takeplace there The only perfectly. is that Cartagena has an significant difference aristocracy thatVeracruz hasn'thad sincetheMexicanRevolution. Never before had I had whatI was writing at hand and been able to go out as ifwith a sack and put in thatsack whatever I wanted. WILLIAMS: And then youcouldcomeback to the refreshed. apartment GARCIA MARQUEZ: No, weighted down like a sack.And at thesametime itwasvery comfortable because I was living in a calm city, set apartfrom theCaribbean, butwith theentire world at an arm's

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withGabriel Garci'aMdrquez An Interview

GARcIAMARQUEZ: In reality, it'smyparents' love story. I heardmyfather and mymother bothtalk about theselovestories. That'swhy is set thestory duringthe period of theiryouth,althoughI put muchofthestory backevenfurther intime. My fatherwas a telegrapher who also playedtheviolin and wrote lovepoems.In Love in theTimeofCholeraI wasconcerned with theperiodwhenthenovel ended. Consequently, I made an effort to go far enough back in time that the couple would be old whenthenovelends.If I putthem eighty years at theend of thenineteenth it wasn'tbecentury, cause I wanted to butrather so thatthey could finishwith thetripon theMagdalena River. It had to be a period in whichthe airplanecouldn'tbe a solution. WILLIAMS: Setting aside thenovels momentarily, I havea moregeneral question.I remember reading about a Garcia Marquez who alwaysseemed verydoubtful about literary critics and academic scholars. Has your age or have other factors changed your attitudeat all? Are you more inin whatthecritics terested haveto say? GARcIAMARQUEZ: There's an important change, and that'sthatI don'treadthemat all now. WILLIAMS: Not at all? GARCIA MARQUEZ: No. I don't read them,because I findthemverydistant.There'sno doubt thattheauthor'svisionof hisor herbooks is very different fromthe vision of the criticor of the reader. Besides, critics cause a lotof doubts.On the other hand,I'vehadthegood luckofhaving readers who giveme greatsecurity. Forexample, books as different as Chronicle ofa DeathForetold andLove in the Time of Cholera have givenme security. Readers don'ttellyouwhy they liked thebooks,nor do they knowwhy, butyoufeelthatthey really like them. Of course, there arealso peoplewhosaythey don'tlikethebooks,butingeneral myreaders seem to be sweptaway.And mybooks are sold in enormous quantities, whichinterests me,because that meansthat arereadbya broadpublic. they Theyare read byelevator operators, nurses, doctors, presidents.This givesme a tremendous security, while thecritics alwaysleavewriters witha sparkof insecurity. Eventhemostserious and praiseful critics can go offon a track youhadn'tsuspected, leaving ifperhapsyoumadea mistake. youwondering Besides,I understand thecritics I'm notexvery little. actlysurewhatthey aresaying or whatthey think. The truth is thatwhatreally interests me is telling a story. comes from Everything insideor is in my

reach.Almosttwo or threetimesa weekwe had friends visiting from all overthe world.And any and take timeI felt likeit I could go to theairport offto Europe or New Yorkor wherever. It's a very for comfortable that.If I waswaiting for city someon thefouro'clock plane,I wouldgo one arriving to read,and whenI saw thefour out on theterrace I wouldrunto thecar and o'clock plane arriving, was coming at theairport arrive just as myvisitor around outofit.Fantastic, After the right? traveling worldone realizeshow easyit is to livethere. And inthecountry thenlaterthesituation changesand It seemsto me a greatinjustice. one is screwed.2 WILLIAMS: Sometimes whenI look at Cartagena from above,from thefortress ofSan Felipe, itseems likea littlefiction. GARCIA MARQUEZ: Well,it'snot possibleto defineCartagena.And thehistorians haveinvented another to do with Cartagena,whichhas nothing thereal one. WILLIAMS: And whatthehistorians have to say wasn'tof anyimportance to you in thisbook? GARcIAMARQUEZ: No. In a nutshell, thatwasmy In addition, Cartagenaexperience. mygeographic and emotional referents in The Autumn of the Patriarch wereCartagenatoo. WILLIAMS: Really?I hadn'tever thought of Cartagena. GARCiA MARQUEZ: What happenedwas thatI tookawaythewallsbecausewith them theidentity of thecitywould havebeen too definite. WILLIAMS: Cartagena and Veracruz were cities not only surrounded by walls but built by the same Spaniardsduring thecolonial period. GARCIA MARQUEZ:Yes,butin Love in the Time of CholeraI used a trick whenthey go up in a balloon and pass overtheruins of Cartagena.Do you remember that?Theysee theold city of Cartagena abandoned. As an almostpoeticimage,it'sbeautiful, and theuse ofthisimagegivesan idea of how can be handledin literature. things WILLIAMS: Once again,thepoetization of space. GARcIAMARQUEZ: Exactly, and justwhenI have themconvinced thatthisis Cartagena,thenI take them an abandonedCartagena. through It'sa doublingof thecity. Let's sayit'sthesame cityin two distinct periods,two different temporal spaces. WILLIAMS: We'vespentmostof our timetalking aboutvisualarts, your poetization of space,and the like. BeforeleavingbehindLove in the Time of Cholera, one last question. Why a nineteenthlove story? century

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RaymondLeslie Williams
of an ideologresult or is thenatural subconscious from raw thatI comes ical positionor experience I to use in all innocence. which haven't analyzed, try in writing. If someone I thinkI'm quite innocent from a politicalpoint studiedmybooks seriously me at all ifitweredisof view, itwouldn't surprise different from coveredthat theyare completely whatI say about politics. of with a political question WILLIAMS: Let'sfinish of PMLA. I knowthatat interest to manyreaders theModernLanguageAssociation different times intheUnited and other professional organizations hantheStateDepartment's Stateshavequestioned In addition, visitor. ofyour status as a foreign dling manyUS academicswouldliketo see you at conferences and symposia.The detailsof yourstatus has been ofus. Whatexactly not are clearfor many our State Department? yourpositionconcerning question GARcIAMARQUEZ: That'san interesting withmyentrances and exits because the problem in theUS are and theproblem of myillegitimacy are moretheUS government's problems thanthey lemine.I'll explain why. The reasonI'm nottotally is becauseoftheMcCarrangal intheUnited States into Walter Act,which prohibits or limits entrance theUnitedStatesforsome individuals because of theirideas.3That's the seriouspart.The law is in total contradiction and supto the Constitution oftheUnitedStates.Of posedpolitical philosophy I'm notevena political course,I'm nota terrorist. I do havepoliticalideas, whichI express, activist. althoughmuchless thansome claim. WILLIAMS: Well,youand I usuallytalkabout literature. GARCIA I'm veryconsistent about MARQUEZ: whatI do. Exceptforhaving political ideas,I can't be accused of an act thatviolatestheMcCarranthatperWalter Act.The StateDepartment knows welland alwayshas. Consequently, I really fectly can enterand leavetheUS whenever I want,and I've been there from timeto time.I was a US residentwhenI was a correspondent withPrensaLatinain theearly1960s.I returned to Mexicowhen

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Communists whotookoverthe a groupofmilitant Just look at all agency decidedI wasn't trustworthy. in this.Then they called me to thecontradictions inMexicoonedayand toldme theUS embassy here in mycardand thatthey wouldreturn it to to turn I turned it in. It me whenI wantedit. Innocently, for to have wouldhavebeenfarmoredifficult them could onlyhave takenit from me. Theyprobably done so with a legalbattle. Thena yearor twolater I wentto a US consulateto gettravel papers,and toldme I didn'tqualify. I didn'ttry they again until 1971, whenthey gaveme an honorary doctorate at Columbia University. I discovered I could gain intotheUS anytime I wanted, butalways entrance as an exception, whichmade me realizethatI was solvingtheirproblem.That is, I was solvingthe problem of theMcCarran-Walter Actforthem. As I alwayshad a little an exception, code at thebottomofmy visa.Besidesthat, I'm ina "blackbook," which must nowbe a "blackcomputer." Sincethere are so many peoplewhowouldliketo go to theUS and can't because of thislaw,it isn'tappropriate thatI accepttheexception they makeforme each time.So I don'tacceptthisvisa. WILLIAMS: And youdon'tgo to anyconferences or symposiain theUS? GARCIA MARQUEZ: Well,I don'tgo to anysymposia, becauseI don'tlikethosemeetings and I atto avoid all of them.Besides,in the US, I tempt maintain thispositionon theunacceptable visa. I could havegoneto anyof theconferences thatI've chosennotto attend. methe Theywouldhavegiven visa,butalways with thelittle code on thebottom. It takesa month formeto getthevisa,butthey alwaysgiveit to me. Thereis another matter thatis In whatothercountry absurdly contradictory. are mybooks studied moreseriously? I've alwayssaid thatif they're goingto prohibit myentrance they oughtto prohibit mybooks, too. My books are I'm totally inoffensive. What'soffeneverywhere. sivearemybooks,sincethey havemyideasandthey areeverywhere. That'sthereasonI saytheproblem is moretheStateDepartment's thanmine.

Notes
I The datesof themeetings were12May 1987and 21 October 1987.These twoconversations werethe fifth and sixthprivate talks I have had withGarcia Marquez since meeting him in Bogota in 1975; the October conversation reproducedhere represents myfirst published interview withhim.The publicationdatesoftheSpanishoriginals ofthenovels wediscussed are
as follows: One HundredYears ofSolitude,1967;TheAutumn of thePatriarch, 1975;and Love in the Timeof Cholera,1981. I wouldliketo express mygratitude to JohnKronikforhisencouragement and editorial suggestions and to GermanVargas of Barranquilla, Colombia,forhishelpful efforts overtheyears to bringme together withhis friend Garcia Marquez.

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withGabriel Garcia Mdrquez An Interview

3 The severity Acthas beenmodified of theMcCarran-Walter In December 1987 Congressset temsince thisconversation. to deny visasforreasons right porary limits on thegovernment's bill A State Department authorization of national security. provided thatno alien could be denieda visa "because of any inbya United ifengaged beliefs which, past,current orexpected of the undertheConstitution wouldbe protected Statescitizen, Post 11May 1988).Thispartof the UnitedStates"(Washington inorder to clarify Garnevertheless, interview has beenincluded, and theUS in cia Marquez'spositionon theStateDepartment recent years.

2 The period Garcia Marquez spent in Cartagena writing and summer of Love in the Timeof Cholerawas in thespring violence has escalated and drug-related 1984.Sincethenpolitical and livesin MexicoCity, enormously. GarciaMarquezcurrently thathe had he mentioned to me in one of the 1987interviews to Colombia, because no one, not even not recently returned of his perBarco,could givehimassurances President Virgilio dangerforhimwouldprobsonal safety. The mostimmediate deathsquads thathave right-wing ablybe one of thenumerous to Colombiaafactive since1986.He returned beenincreasingly in 1982and regularly terreceiving theNobel PrizeforLiterature (1982-86). the presidency of BelisarioBetancur during

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