The Hindu : National : Marquez book forced on to streets

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Tuesday, Oct 19, 2004

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National

Marquez book forced on to streets

BOGOTA, OCT. 18. Fans of the Nobel prize-winning author, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, have waited more than a decade for his latest work of fiction. Now, thanks to bootleggers, the wait has been shortened by a week.

Mr. Marquez's new work, `Memorias de Mis Putas Tristes,' or `Memories of My Melancholy Whores,' will be published in Spanish on Wednesday, a week before the original launch date.

``We're going to start selling them on Wednesday because of the pirates,'' said Moises Melo, Editor at the publishing house Norma de Colombia, which has printed 350,000 copies of the novel to sell in Colombia and neighbouring countries.

Pirated versions

In a full-page advertisement in Colombia's leading newspaper on Saturday, the publishers announced the early launch and denounced the pirated versions being peddled on the streets of the Colombian capital as ``mutilating the content of the work.''

Colombia is inundated with millions of dollars worth of pirated books, CDs and DVDs and street-sellers often position themselves outside bookshops, offering the latest titles at less than half the price of legitimate copies. But rarely does a bootleg copy appear before the original version.

The story

Set in the Colombian city of Barranquilla in the 1950s, the book tells the tale of a lonely 90-year-old man who decides to give himself a night with a young virgin as a birthday present. He returns to a brothel he once frequented, but instead of finding carnal pleasures, he discovers a renewed love of life.

Mr. Marquez ``has written a work of fiction about the love an older man feels'', Mr. Melo said, describing the new novel. ``It has a melancholic tone that's very beautiful.''

The book ``is a homage to the defiance of death,'' the Colombian author, Jorge Franco, wrote in a review.

`Memorias de Mis Putas Tristes' is the first work of fiction in more than a decade from the author of `One Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera.'

Mr. Marquez wrote his new book, just 115 pages in the Spanish version, in Mexico City, where he has been a resident for many years. — © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004

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