Vivir Para Contarla

Latino Leaders: The National Magazine of the Successful American Latino, Feb-March, 2003

Publication date: December 2002 Published by Alfred A. Knopf $25.00 ISBN: 1-4000-4106-6

The welcome return of Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

"La vida no es la que uno vivio, sino la que uno recuerda y come la recuerda para contarla," is the powerful opening to Garcia Marquez's long-awaited memoirs, Vivir Para Contarla (Living to Tell the Tale). The famed storyteller of One Hundred Years of Solitude, Love in the Time of Cholera, and Chronicle of a Death Foretold is back with the story of his life, an insight into his past and his works. Through the pages of Vivir Para Contarla, the Nobel Prize winner shares the remarkable story of his colorful youth through the time he became a journalist. Those already familiar with Garcia Marquez's work will spot echoes of characters and plots that were first introduced in his widely acclaimed books.

The author shares intimate moments with the reader, including a walk with his grandfather by the ocean, where Garcia Marquez asks his grandfather, "What's on the other side?" and the grandfather replies, "There is on other side." Through his memoirs Garcia Marquez takes on a new perspective and shows us that the way a tale is told is more important than the tale itself.

This Spanish-language edition has been an enormous bestseller for Alfred A, Knopf and an English translation, by Edith Grossman, is expected in late fall 2003 under the title Living to Tell the Tale.