Myrtle Beach Sun News Logo

Mexican, Colombian presidents hail Gabriel Garcia Marquez in lavish Mexico City memorial | Myrtle Beach Sun News

×
  • E-edition
  • Home
    • Customer Service
    • Subscribe
    • Activate Your Account
    • Account Support
    • Mobile Apps
    • Newsletters
    • The Sun News Store
    • FAQ
    • Cancel SunValues Delivery
    • Plan
    • All Tourist Info
    • Vacation Planner
    • Calendar
    • Where to Stay
    • Ask a Local
    • Festivals Guide
    • Best of the Area
    • Play
    • Nightlife
    • Golf
    • Shopping
    • Shows
    • Myrtle Beach Blog
    • Restaurants

  • Obituaries
    • All News
    • Local News
    • Crime/Courts
    • Business
    • State News
    • Nation/World
    • Weird News
    • More News
    • Politics
    • Myrtle Beach Bike Rallies
    • Submit A News Tip
    • Tourism News
    • Real Estate News
    • All Sports
    • High Schools
    • Coastal Carolina
    • Recreation
    • Golf
    • MB Pelicans
    • Auto Racing
    • More Sports
    • College Sports
    • NFL
    • MLB
    • MB Marathon
    • Toast Of The Coast
    • Green Reading Blog
    • The Roost Blog
    • All Opinion
    • Letters To The Editor
    • Submit A Letter
    • Editorial
    • Cartoons
    • Columns & Blogs
    • Bob Bestler
    • All Living
    • Coasting
    • Neighbors
    • Food
    • Best Of The Beach
    • Announcements
    • Religion
    • Travel
    • Pets
    • Home & Garden
    • All Entertainment
    • Kicks!
    • Best Of The Beach
    • Movies
    • Calendar
    • Contests
    • More Entertainment
    • Comics
    • Puzzles & Games
    • Horoscopes
    • Celebrities
    • Music
    • TV

  • Legals
  • Cars
  • Jobs
  • Moonlighting
  • Homes
  • Classifieds
  • Classified Ads

  • About Us
  • Mobile & Apps

World

Mexican, Colombian presidents hail Gabriel Garcia Marquez in lavish Mexico City memorial

By Tim Johnson - McClatchy Foreign Staff

    ORDER REPRINT →

April 21, 2014 10:08 PM

The presidents of Mexico and Colombia Monday evening stood before an urn containing the ashes of Gabriel Garcia Marquez and extolled him as the most transcendent Spanish-language writer in centuries.

“Garcia Marquez is the greatest Latin American novelist of all time,” Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto told a packed crowd in the ornate vestibule of the Palace of Fine Arts. “Gabo, as we affectionately called him, placed Latin literature in the vanguard of world literature.”

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos said Garcia Marquez incorporated in his writings “the very essence of the Latin American being.”

“What a privilege it is to call my compatriot the man who imagined Macondo and who wrote about the power of love,” Santos added, referring to the fictional town at the heart of Garcia Marquez’s most powerful novel, “One Hundred Years of Solitude.”

SIGN UP

Sign Up and Save

Get six months of free digital access to The Sun News

SUBSCRIBE WITH GOOGLE

#ReadLocal

Earlier in the day, escorts carrying the ashes of the 1982 Nobel laureate in Literature arrived at Mexico City’s majestic Palace of Fine Arts, placing the urn atop a black marble pedestal set on a brilliant red carpet in the palace’s ornate vestibule. Thousands of yellow roses gave bright color to the palace in an effort to recreate the butterflies and other magical creatures that characterized the writer’s novels.

A string quartet played music by Hungarian composer Bela Bartok, and other musicians struck up romantic Vallenato music of northern Colombia, heavy with accordion and Caribbean bongo rhythms, both favorites of Garcia Marquez.

Throngs of admirers filed past the urn.

One bouquet of yellow and white roses came from former Cuban dictator Fidel Castro and was dedicated to “my beloved friend.” Raul Castro sent another bouquet dedicated to “a great friend to Cuba.” Garcia Marquez, a staunch leftist, maintained a friendship of near adoration with the former Cuban strongman, and warm relations with his younger brother.

The Colombian writer died at his home in Mexico City last Thursday, a little more than a week after leaving a local hospital where he was treated for pneumonia.

Garcia Marquez is considered the father of the literary genre known as magical realism, the melding of reality, dreams and Latin American history that made his novels favorites in some two dozen languages. “One Hundred Years of Solitude” sold an astonishing 50 million copies worldwide.

His writing evoked lush, evocative and even erotic images of rural Latin American life, where the real and surreal blend together in sorrow and beauty.

In Madrid, Mexican writer Elena Poniatowska said Monday that Garcia Marquez “gave wings to Latin America.”

The first major event to commemorate Garcia Marquez unfolded in Mexico rather than Colombia, his country of birth. Garcia Marquez lived more than three decades in Mexico City, though he also maintained residences in Havana and Cartagena, the port near his Colombian hometown of Aracataca, renowned as the village of Macondo portrayed in “One Hundred Years of Solitude.”

Commemorations continue on Tuesday, when the Colombian government will host a ceremony at the cathedral in that country’s capital, Bogota. The ceremony will be televised.

In addition to “One Hundred Years of Solitude,” Garcia Marquez’s novels included "Chronicle of a Death Foretold," and "Love in the Time of Cholera.” A former journalist, he also wrote an account of the abductions of prominent Colombians by the Medellin drug cartel in the late 1980s and 1990s, “News of a Kidnapping,” and a memoir, "Memories of My Melancholy Whores."

Still unclear is where the writer’s ashes will end up. Both Colombia and Mexico would like them but Garcia Marquez’s family has not yet made its wishes known.

After his death last week, Colombia's ambassador to Mexico, Jose Gabriel Ortiz, said that the writer’s remains might be divided between the two countries.

“In Mexico, of course, one part of him will remain, and it's thought that they can take another part to Colombia ... and that some of his ashes will remain there," Gabriel Ortiz said.

The writer’s lifelong fascination with the political left also made him enemies. One incoming Colombian legislator, Maria Fernanda Cabal, tweeted after the writer’s death that she believed Garcia Marquez and Castro “will soon be together in hell.”

On Monday, supporters of Garcia Marquez filed a criminal complaint before Colombia’s Supreme Court demanding that Cabal be formally charged with discrimination and barred from taking her congressional seat.

  Comments  

Videos

Police officer yells at mother for leaving children in hot car

How to make Starbucks’ Unicorn Frappuccino at home

View More Video

Trending Stories

He boarded bus for North Myrtle High, but never showed, cops say. Now a search is on

February 15, 2019 08:02 AM

3 calls, 6 hours: MB sees spike in overdose calls while county drug death numbers grow

February 14, 2019 08:38 AM

Giving ‘Love’ a bad name. Robbery dispute leads to Valentine’s stabbing in Myrtle Beach

February 15, 2019 11:01 AM

Mugshots, Feb. 15

February 15, 2019 06:40 AM

This College World Series star will have an emotional return to the mound for CCU

February 14, 2019 08:39 PM

things to do

Read Next

Vatican defrocks former US cardinal McCarrick over sex abuse

World

Vatican defrocks former US cardinal McCarrick over sex abuse

By FRANCES D'EMILIO and NICOLE WINFIELD Associated Press

    ORDER REPRINT →

February 16, 2019 05:41 AM

The Vatican says Pope Francis has defrocked former U.S. Cardinal Theodore McCarrick after Vatican officials found him guilty of soliciting for sex while hearing Confession.

KEEP READING

Sign Up and Save

#ReadLocal

Get six months of free digital access to The Sun News

SUBSCRIBE WITH GOOGLE

MORE WORLD

The Latest: China not interested in joining missile treaty

National Business

The Latest: China not interested in joining missile treaty

February 16, 2019 07:01 AM
Retired Indian general urges caution against Pakistan strike

World

Retired Indian general urges caution against Pakistan strike

February 16, 2019 07:00 AM
Clashes with police in Albanian opposition rally

World

Clashes with police in Albanian opposition rally

February 16, 2019 06:46 AM
US-backed fighters squeezing IS gunmen in eastern Syria

World

US-backed fighters squeezing IS gunmen in eastern Syria

February 16, 2019 06:27 AM
Merkel defends Iran stance, urges China to join arms talks

World

Merkel defends Iran stance, urges China to join arms talks

February 16, 2019 06:21 AM
The Latest: Holdener leads by 0.11 in slalom, Shiffrin 3rd

Entertainment

The Latest: Holdener leads by 0.11 in slalom, Shiffrin 3rd

February 16, 2019 06:14 AM
Take Us With You

Real-time updates and all local stories you want right in the palm of your hand.

Icon for mobile apps

Myrtle Beach Sun News App

View Newsletters

Subscriptions
  • Start a Subscription
  • Customer Service
  • eEdition
  • Vacation Hold
  • Pay Your Bill
  • Rewards
Learn More
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Newsletters
  • News in Education
Advertising
  • Place a Classified
  • Advertise
  • Rates
  • Contests & Promotions
  • Local Deals
Copyright
Privacy Policy
Terms of Service


Back to Story