South LA tribute to Gabriel García Márquez



El coronel necesitó setenta y cinco años — los setenta y cinco años de su vida, minuto a minuto –para llegar a ese instante. Se sintió puro, explicito, invencible, en el momento de responder.

“Mierda.”

Gabriel Garcia Marquez at | Festival Internacional de Cine en Guadalajara

Gabriel Garcia Marquez in 2009 | Festival Internacional de Cine en Guadalajara

I laughed out loud to myself as I finished reading “El coronel no tiene quien le escriba.”

“Shit.”

This is the answer that took the colonel seventy-five years of his life to provide in response to his wife as she pestered him about what they were going to eat.

“No One Writes to the Colonel” is the second novel I read by Gabriel García Márquez. It is one of my favorite books written by him, with one of the best endings that I have ever read. It is sad that Latin America has lost one of its most prized writers. But to me, he lives on in his stories and in the love of people who want change.

I discovered Márquez — also called El Gabo, a diminutive of affection among his friends and fans — in my first English class in community college two years ago when I read the “The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World.” In this short story Márquez transforms the life of an isolated village when its residents become enamored of a dead man who washes up on their shore. Gabo gives life to a drowned man with his magical realism in stunning, straightforward prose. Instantly, I added him to my list of must-read authors, venturing to learn still more about El Gabo and his art. [Read more…]

Aun vive el Gabo: Tribute poem to Gabriel García Márquez



Editor’s Note: Gabriel García Márquez died April 17 leaving behind dozens of writings and a legacy that touches young writers around the world. Miguel Molina of Reporter Corps South L.A. is one of them. To pay homage to “El Gabo,” Molina penned the poem below (in Spanish and English) and a first-person piece titled, “He wrote for us all: A South LA tribute to Gabriel Garcia Marquez.”

One of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's famed novels, "Love in the Time of Cholera" | Ross Angus

One of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s famed novels, “Love in the Time of Cholera” | Ross Angus

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