Gabriel Garcia Marquez Honoured
Cartagena hosts Nobel Prize Winner and World Literati
This week Cartagena's streets are packed with artists, musicians and writers all here participating in and attending the IV Congreso Internacional de la Lengua Espanola
With all of the efficiency that can be expected from an event held on the Caribbean coast, the IV Congreso internacional de la Lengua Espanola spluttered into action on Monday in the Colombian jewel of Cartagena la Heroica.
The rallying call from academics and the Spanish speaking literati this week has been one for better schools and greater impetus on eradicating illiteracy in the Hispanic world. As Spanish writer Antonio Munoz Molina said: “The enemy of the Spanish language is not English, but poverty.”
Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Bill Clinton
Participants and guests gathered here in homage to Gabriel Garcia Marquez who even spoke emotionally, in a speech laden with charming anecdotes regarding his years of poverty prior to writing 100 Years of Solitude, to a rapt audience. His speech was frequently interrupted by cheers and raucous ovations and later by the late entry of former US President Bill Clinton who later said: “Not everything in life has to be power, politics and money.” The former President then stated that he was here to honour the 80th birthday of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, “his personal friend”.
Carlos Fuentes Recalls
A very special moment recalled in the homage by Mexican writer Carlos Fuentes who remembered fondly the day he was introduced to Gabriel Garcia Marquez by Colombian writer Alvaro Mutis.
“Today begins the next 100 years of Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Today is the first day for the next reader of 100 Years of Solitude,” closed the Mexican writer.
“Gabo” speaks to an adoring audience
In Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s speech to the Congress, the 1982 Nobel Prize Winner recounted of how, when he and his wife Mercedes, visited the Post Office in Mexico City to send the manuscript of 100 Years of Solitude to the publishing house in Argentina, so dire was their financial state that they could they only had 53 of the 82 pesos needed to send the script.
They divided the manuscript in two and sent one half to Buenos Aires only to receive notice later that they had sent the second half but there was an eager editor in the southern Capital city desperate to know how the story began!
Other famous Guests and Speakers
The event, possibly the most important cultural event for the Spanish speaking world to be held in Colombia, was attended also by Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, former President Andres Pastrana, Panamanian President, Martin Torrijos, Spanish royalty and another former Colombian President, Belisario Betancur, also the Honorary President for the IV Congreso de la Lengua Espanola.
Betancur quipped and joked about 10 words he hoped to include in the new Spanish dictionary, one of which was, “Lunpereza”, literally translated as LazyMonday – the lethargy that a Monday brings.
Cartagena enlivened with cultural treats
The bookshops of Cartagena have been stacked with thousands of the new edition of 100 Years of Solitude and these copies were not to be sold until midday on Monday after Gabo had addressed the Congress and himself been presented with a special edition.
All week to commemorate the Congress, Cartagena is emphasising the arts. Live music rings through the colonial masterpiece streets, street performers man the plazas and everywhere the barrios ring with conversations of Gabo, Colombia’s most famous living son.
