Gabriel Garcia Marquez Again Denies That He's Retiring
Here we go again. Nobel laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez once again has had to declare
that -- contrary to false reports -- that he has not retired, and is still writing. In fact, he says he writes constantly. What's so weird about this story is that, this time, the nasty rumor was started by his own literary agent.
Last week, the One Hundred Years of Solitude author's literary agent Carmen Balcells told a Chilean newspaper that she didn't think he would write anything else (somewhat galling for her, given that she also revealed Garcia Marquez represented 36.2% of her agency's income). Garcia Marquez's biographer, Gerald Martin, agreed, adding that this wasn't "too regrettable, because as a writer it was his destiny to have the immense satisfaction of having a totally coherent literary career many years before the end of his natural life".
But Garcia Marquez, father of magical realism, author of Love in the Time of Cholera and winner of the 1982 Nobel prize for literature, dismissed these comments yesterday when contacted by a Colombian paper. "Maestro, could you answer some questions for El Tiempo?" he was asked by the paper. "Call me later, I'm writing," the author known affectionately as "Gabo" responded tartly.
When he eventually agreed to answer two questions from El Tiempo, he put paid to the claims that his literary career was over. "Not only is it not true [that I won't return to writing], but the only thing I do is write," he said.
Asked if he would publish more books, he responded that his job was "to write, not to publish". "I'll know when the cakes I am baking are ready," the 82-year-old concluded enigmatically.
We're quite glad to hear that he is still writing. But, really, what in the world was his agent thinking?
