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Authors: Ilan Stavans

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12
. Dasso Saldívar,
El viaje a la semilla
: 397.

13
. Plinio Apuleyo Mendoza,
The Fragrance of Guava
: 99.

14
. Plinio Apuleyo Mendoza,
The Fragrance of Guava
: 99.

15
. Carlos Fuentes: “An Interview with John King,” in
On Modern Latin American Fiction
, edited by John King. New York: Hill and Wang, 1987: 136–154.

16
. Claudia Dreifus, “Interview; Gabriel García Márquez”: 97.

5 Lo real maravilloso

1
. Rita Guibert,
Seven Voices
: xv.

2
. García Márquez,
No One Writes the Colonel
, translated by Gregory Rabassa, included in
Collected Novellas
. New York: Harper & Row, 1990: 127.

3
. Quoted from the Introduction to
Rubén Darío: Selected Writings
, edited by Ilan Stavans. New York: Penguin Classics, 2005: xxx.

4
. In a series of lectures delivered at the Universidad Veracruzana in 1972, and published first in the journal
Texto crítico
(nos. 31–31, January–August 1985) and in book form as
La narrativa de Gabriel García Márquez: Edificación de un arte nacional y popular
(Bogotá: Instituto Colombiano de Cultura, 1991), the Uruguayan critic Ángel Rama, among other topics, discussed the way García Márquez, like the short-story writer Horacio Quiroga, accommodated himself to pre-established models, imported from abroad, but also related to the amount of space a periodical might allow him to shape his narratives.

5
. Mario Vargas Llosa, “El jubileo de Carmen Balcells,” in
El País
(Madrid), no. 1750, (August 20, 2000).

6
. Gabriel García Márquez,
No One Writes the Colonel
: 126–127.

7
. Dasso Saldívar,
García Márquez: El viaje a la semilla
. Barcelona: Alfaguara, 1997: 412.

8
. José Donoso,
The Boom in Spanish-American Literature: A Personal History
, translated by Gregory Kolovakos. New York: Columbia University Press-Center for Inter-American Relations, 1977: 56.

9
. José Donoso,
The Boom in Spanish-American Literature
: 57–58.

10
. Rita Guibert,
Seven Voices
: xi.

11
. Emir Rodríguez Monegal, “Preface to the Second Volume,” in
The Borzoi Anthology of Latin American Literature
, 2 vols., edited by Emir Rodríguez Monegal, with the assistance of Thomas Colchie. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1977: vol. 2, xiv.

12
. Franz Roh,
Nach-Expressionismus, Magischer Realismus: Probleme der neuesten Europäischen malerei
. Leipzig: Klinkhardt & Biermann, 1925.

13
. See the introduction by Lois Parkinson Zamora and Wendy B. Faris in their book
Magical Realism: Theory, History, Community
. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1995: 3–4.

14
. Alejo Carpentier, “Prologue:
The Kingdom of This World
,” reprinted in
The Oxford Book of Modern Latin American Essays
, edited by Ilan Stavans. New York and London: Oxford University Press, 1997: 194–198.

15
. Luis Leal, “Magic Realism,” in
A Luis Leal Reader
, edited by Ilan Stavans. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2007: 324.

16
. Gabriel García Márquez,
In Evil Hour
, translated by Gregory Rabassa. New York: Avon Books, 1980: 47.

17
. Gregory Rabassa,
If This Be Treason: Translation and Its Discontents.
New York: New Directions, 2005: 103.

6 The Silver Screen

1
. Luis Harss and Barbara Dohmann, “Gabriel García Márquez, or the Lost Chord,” in
Into the Mainstream
:
Conversations with Latin-American Writers
. New York: Harper & Row, 1967: 310.

2
. Luis Harss and Barbara Dohmann,
Into the Mainstream
: 317.

3
. García Márquez,
Living to Tell the Tale
: 83–84.

4
. Álvaro Mutis,
Diary of Lecumberri: A Poet Behind Bars
, translated by Jesse H. Lytle,
Hopscotch: A Cultural Review,
vol. 1, no. 3 (1999): 2–37.

5
. Dasso Saldívar,
El viaje a la semilla
: 433, 437.

6
. Gabriel García Márquez, “
La odisea literaria de un manuscrito
,” published in
El País
(Madrid), July 15, 2001.

7
. In chapter nineteen of
One Hundred Years of Solitude
(pages 386–387), the author inserted a prank in which he made reference to his two children: Gastón, a lover of planes, and Amaranta Úrsula “began to love each other at an altitude of fifteen hundred feet in the Sunday air of the moors, and they felt all the closer together as the beings on earth grew more and more minute. She spoke to him of Macondo as the brightest and most peaceful town on earth, and of an enormous house, scented with oregano, where she wanted to live until old age with a royal husband and two strong sons who would be called Rodrigo and Gonzalo, never Aureliano and José Arcadio.”

8
. Rita Guibert,
Seven Voices: Seven Latin American Writers Talk to Rita Guibert
. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1973: 321.

9
. Susana Cato, “Soap Operas are Wonderful. I've Always Wanted to Write One,” in Gene H. Bel-Villada,
Conversations with Gabriel García Márquez
: 150.

10
. Juan Rulfo,
Pedro Páramo
, edited José Carlos González Boixo. Madrid: Cátedra, 1983: 179.

11
. Martin Kaplan, “Review of
Innocent Eréndira and Other Stories,

New Republic,
179 (August 26, 1978): 46.

12
. Luis Harss and Barbara Dohmann,
Into the Mainstream: Conversations with Latin-American Writers
: 317.

7 Sleepless in Macondo

1
. Alberto Manguel and Gianni Guadalupi, Foreword to the
Dictionary of Imaginary Places
. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1980: xi.

2
. Ilan Stavans, “García Márquez's Total Novel,”
The Chronicle of Higher Education
(June 15, 2007).

3
. Edna Van der Walde: “El macondismo como latinoamericanismo,”
Cuadernos Americanos,
vol. 12, no. 1, January–February 1998: 223–37.

4
. Mario Vargas Llosa,
García Márquez: Historia de un deicidio
: 479.

5
. Plinio Apuleyo Mendoza,
The Fragrance of Guava
: 53.

6
. Gabriel García Márquez, “‘
La casa de los Buendía': Apuntes para una novela,”
listed in
Obra periodística
, vol. 1:
Textos costeños
: 63.

7
. Gabriel García Márquez,
Living to Tell the Tale
: 350.

8
. The symbol has further echoes: Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz's seventeenth-century play
Los empeños de una casa
uses the image, as does Federico García Lorca,
La casa de Bernarda Alba
. Borges's story “
La casa de Asterión,”
Gilberto Freyre's anthropological study
Casa grande
, Cortázar's story “
Casa tomada,”
and José Donoso's
Casa de campo
. The symbol is also ubiquitous among Latino writers, starting with Sandra Cisneros's
The House on Mango Street
.

9
. Peter H. Stone, “Gabriel García Márquez”: 185.

10
. Dasso Saldívar,
El viaje a la semilla
: 426–427.

11
. Pete Hamill, “Love and Solitude”: 131.

12
. Plinio Apuleyo Mendoza,
La llama y el hielo
. Barcelona: Planeta, 1984: 110–111.

13
. Eligio García Márquez,
Tras las claves de Melquíades: Historia de “Cien años de soledad.”
Bogotá: Grupo Editorial Norma, 2001: 88–91.

14
. Mario Vargas Llosa,
García Márquez: Historia de un deicidio
: 77.

15
. Gabriel García Márquez,
Living to Tell the Tale
: 19.

16
. Claudia Dreifus, “
Playboy
Interview: Gabriel García Márquez,”
Playboy
magazine, (February 1983): 65–77, 172–178, reprinted in Bell-Villada,
Conversations with Gabriel García Márquez
: 123.

17
. Miguel Fernández-Bermejo,
La soledad de Gabriel García Márquez
. Barcelona: Planeta, 1972. This portion of the interview appeared in
Triunfo
(Madrid), vol. 25, no. 44 (November 1971): 12–18. Reprinted in
García Márquez habla de García Márquez
, edited by Alfonso Rentería Mantilla. Bogotá: Rentería Editores, 1979: 49–64. The piece is featured as “And Now, Two hundred Years of Solitude,” by Ernesto González Bermejo, included in Bell-Villada,
Conversations with Gabriel García Márquez
: 12.

18
. Dreifus interview, in Bell-Villada,
Conversations with Gabriel García Márquez
: 122.

19
. Rita Guibert,
Seven Voices
: 316–317.

20
. Carlos Fuentes, “García Márquez:
Cien años de soledad
.” “La Cultura en México,” literary supplement of
Siempre
! (Mexico), no. 679 (June 29, 1966).

21
. Eduardo García Aguilar,
Celebraciones y otros fantasmas: Una biografía intelectual de Álvaro Mutis.
Bogotá: Tercer Mundo Editores, 1993: 109–110.

22
. José Miguel Oviedo, “
Cuarenta, ochenta y cien años
,” in
El arte de leer a García Márquez
, edited by Juan Gustavo Cobo Borda. Bogotá: Grupo Editorial Norma, 2007: 261.

23
. Heriberto Fiorillo,
La Cueva
: 346.

24
. Gabriel García Márquez, “
La odisea literaria de un manus crito
,” published in
El País
(Madrid), July 15, 2001.

25
. Rita Guibert,
Seven Voices: Conversations with Latin American Writers
: 324–325.

26
. Luis Harss was not to follow his instinct. In the Prologue, Harss and Dohmann stated: “Our selection of authors lays no claim to infallibility or exclusiveness. There is a bad habit everywhere nowadays of glorifying certain figures at
the expense of others. Our book tried neither to magnify nor to belittle. Of course there is judgment implicit in every choice. But we insist that ours is personal, and has no wish to be final.”
Into the Mainstream
: 34. Of all the authors included, García Márquez was, arguably, the writer who became the biggest revelation to Harss. According to Tomás Eloy Martínez in his syndicated essay “¿Qué se hizo de Luis Harss?”
Diario de las Américas
(February 9, 2008), Harss had only read some short stories by García Márquez as well as
In Evil Hour
when approximately seventy pages of
One Hundred Years of Solitude,
which García Márquez had begun to circulate, reached his hands, although he didn't exactly remember who sent them to him. Harss did remember showing them to Paco Porrúa, the editor in the publishing house Sudamericana. Curiously, after working on an edition of Ricardo Güiraldes' Don Segundo Sombra and a translation of Sor Juana Inés de La Cruz's poem
First Dream
, Harss, born in 1936 and at one time Latin America's most visible cultural chronicler, settled in Mercersburg, Pennsylvania, and beginning the mid-eighties onward all but ceased to produce engaging cultural reflections.

27
. Gerald Martin,
Gabriel García Márquez: A Life
. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2009: 303–304.

8 Convergences

1
. The list of active participants in
El Boom
has always been the subject of contention. Some literary historians would hesitate to include writers like Onetti, Guimarães Rosa, and Lezama Lima, born before 1910. Even Juan Rulfo, born in 1917, doesn't make the cut for them. Yet this rule doesn't apply to Cortázar, who, although born in 1914, always presented himself in a youthful manner. Others instead would broaden the parameters to such an extent as to incorporate Borges, who was born in 1899, as well as Miguel Angel Asturias, the Guatemalan writer also born that year. There are also critics who refuse to look at age as the qualifier. To make their argument they point at Cortázar, who
although born in 1914, always presented himself as youthful through his passion for jazz, experimentalism, and a Beatnik-like approach to literature. It is important to emphasize the extent to which
El Boom
, at least during its initial years, was an all boys' club.

2
. John King,
El Di Tella y el desarrollo cultural argentino en la década del sesenta
. Buenos Aires: AsuntoImpresoEdiciones and Instituto Torcuato Di Tella, 2007: 13. The translation is mine.

3
. John King,
El Di Tella
: 13.

4
. Dasso Saldívar,
El viaje a la semilla
: 453.

5
. Dasso Saldívar,
El viaje a la semilla
: 454.

6
. Eligio García Márquez,
Tras las claves de Melquíades
: 14–15.

7
. John King,
El Di Tella
: 14.

8
. John King,
El Di Tella
: 14–15.

9
. Another one of García Márquez's novels,
The General in His Labyrinth
(1989), about Simón Bolívar's last days, which used as an inspiration a short story by Álvaro Mutis called “
El último rostro
,” is also considered to be part of this canon.

10
. Adam Feinstein,
Pablo Neruda: A Passion for Life
. London: Bloomsbury, 2004: 351.

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