Gabriel Garcia Marquez: Playboy Interview

The Nobel Prize is at once the most prestigious and the least predictable of honors, so it was an unexpected pleasure for us when it was announced that the 1982 winner for literature was the Latin-American novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Not only has Playboy published his fiction for more than a decade but we had recently sent a reporter abroad to engage him in the most extensive interview of his career. So when it was announced that he would be making the traditional journey to Stockholm in early December to receive his award, we had the satisfaction of offering our readers a fortuitously timed interview. The world's literary community, however, may claim that the announcement was not unexpected. For years, critics had been waxing ecstatic about the author of "One Hundred Years of Solitude," hailing him as one of the world's great living novelists, comparing his work to that of William Faulkner and James Joyce. Indeed, among the literati, Garcia Marquez—"Gabo," as he's known to his friends—has long been talked of as a Nobel contender. The only question was when, not if.

A few basic facts about Garcia Marquez: He is the foremost practitioner of Latin America's "magic realist" literary style, a form in which fantasy and reality are blended into a uniquely New World form of storytelling; his masterly novel of life, love and revolution in a Latin-American village, "One Hundred Years of Solitude," has sold more than 6,000,000 copies in more than 30 languages; the book is a cult classic on American college campuses; before garnering his Nobel, Garcia Marquez won every international prize worth having.

Beyond his literary accomplishments, Garcia Marquez is a political activist, an advocate of social revolution in the Third World and in Latin America in particular. He is a close friend of many world leaders, including Cuba's Fidel Castro and France's Socialist President François Mitterrand. His leftist views and background have made him a controversial figure in the U.S.

When "One Hundred Years of Solitude" was published in the United States in 1970, critics fell over one another to pronounce Garcia Marquez a genius. That was followed in 1975 with "The Autumn of the Patriarch," a wildly surreal work about a Latin-American dictator who's been in power so long that no one remembers how he got there. This April, Knopf will be bringing out his latest, "Chronicle of a Death Foretold," a story of sex, murder and retribution.

Born in the Colombian coastal village of Aracataca in 1928, the writer grew up in an atmosphere that made him a natural storyteller. Aracataca, he always said, was a wonderful place of "bandits and dancers." His grandfather told young Gabriel true tales of war, injustice and politics. His grandmother recited bedtime stories of the supernatural.

Since the age of 18, Garcia Marquez knew that a big book about Latin America brewed inside him. As a young man, he studied law at the University of Bogota—a pursuit he continued until, in the late Forties, he quit to eke out a living as a writer and a journalist. During the Fifties and Sixties, he lived the itinerant life of a reporter in Paris, Rome and Caracas, including a stint as a correspondent for Prensa Latina, revolutionary Cuba's news agency. On one brief trip back home in 1958, he married his childhood sweetheart, Mercedes Barcha. When not writing for newspapers, Garcia Marquez wrote fiction: "Leaf Storm," "No One Writes to the Colonel," "In Evil Hour" and "Big Mama's Funeral," works that some scholars now consider first drafts of "One Hundred Years of Solitude." By 1965, free-lancer Garcia Marquez found himself in Mexico City, supporting his wife and two sons. It was there that the idea for "One Hundred Years of Solitude" was crystallized.

In the years since its publication in 1967, Garcia Marquez has found himself catapulted to wealth, political influence and the international renown reserved for movie stars and statesmen. The Garcia family now maintains elegant residences in Paris and Mexico City, and he has used his influence to become an unofficial ambassador for leftist Latin America. He has tried unsuccessfully to ignore his fame, saying, "I detest being converted into a public spectacle."

Last year, Playboy gave journalist Claudia Dreifus the green light to try to question this unusual writer. Her report:

"To describe Garcia Marquez as elusive is understatement. He does not answer letters, fearing that his correspondence may be sold at auction. His telephone seems to be perpetually out of order. I wrote to him at various addresses in Paris and periodically telephoned his agent in Spain. Nothing happened. Then, one afternoon in New York, Gregory Rabassa, the author's English-language translator, telephoned: 'Gabo is in New York, just for the afternoon. If you rush, you might catch him.'

"In a flash, I contacted Garcia Marquez at his Park Avenue hotel. 'Mr. Garcia Marquez, there's so much that's been written about you and so little of it is true,' I said. 'With a Playboy Interview, you could clear up all the fiction. What's more, with the situation in Central America being what it is, North Americans would be interested in hearing a different voice speak on Latin-American realities. Why don't you tell us your side of the story?'

"Garcia Marquez was intrigued. In March of 1981, he'd suffered the experience of having to flee his native Colombia after the military there tried to link him with a Castroite guerrilla organization. In the United States, he was having problems with the State Department, which, because of his Castro connection, would grant him only a limited U.S. entry visa. Yes, he would like to talk about all of that. Did I speak Spanish? he asked me.

"No.

"Did I speak French?

"A little.

"Well, what did I speak?

"My heart sank as I spoke the name of the most unlikely language for this situation—German. Both of us giggled at the ridiculousness of my answer. 'We'll figure something out,' Garcia Marquez said. 'I'll see you in either Paris or Barcelona—your choice.'

"'I prefer Paris,' I said.

"'Ah, yes,' he laughed; then he added, This conversation is beginning to sound like a scene from a Dos Passos novel.'

"Two months later, we met at his charming modern apartment in a high-rise that towered over Paris. For nine days, we talked, argued and parried, with the nimble assistance of Patricia Newcomer, who did the translating chores from Spanish to English. Sometimes, the author's wife, Mercedes, a dark woman with a quiet manner, sat in on the sessions.

"Incidentally, our conversations about Latin-American politics occurred when El Salvador was in the headlines and before the outcome of last summer's Falklands conflict and the renewed tensions in Nicaragua. These discussions should be read within that context.

"Oddly enough, the playful black humor that is the trademark of Garcia Marquez' writing came out only after lengthy coaxing. Gabriel Garcia Marquez was giving an interview for posterity and, God, he was serious about it. Once, in a fruitless attempt to make him laugh, I took him a box of truffles from Paris' best chocolatier. In 'One Hundred Years of Solitude,' there's a priest who levitates every time he drinks chocolate. 'Will you levitate with these? I asked.

"'It only works with liquid chocolate!" he said glumly. And then he tossed the chocolates to a far corner of the room.

"Nonetheless, when Garcia Marquez goes to Stockholm to receive his Nobel, he'll receive something he will doubtless appreciate more—$157,000 in cash, great acclaim and a certified place in the history of letters. It must be a delicious journey for Garcia Marquez, the fabulist who began his writing in Aracataca, drawing cartoons of his grandmother's occult tales, the man who writes because he wants 'to be loved more.'"