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Marquez Celebrated by Literary
Luminaries
RAHA/6/November/2003
By BEN FOX
NEW YORK - A former president hailed it as the greatest novel of the
past 50 years. A Pulitzer Prize-winning author called it second only
to the Bible as a universal text. Another literary luminary said it
changed the way he viewed the world.Such was the effusive praise
that flowed Wednesday at a tribute to Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the
Colombian author whose works include "One Hundred Years of
Solitude," a novel that remains a milestone of modern literature.
"All of us who have read tonight can actually remember the day we
first read Garcia Marquez. It's that colossal of an event," said
author Salman Rushdie, one of the renowned writers who offered
favorite excerpts at the tribute at The Town Hall theater in midtown
Manhattan. The event marked the U.S. release of "Living to Tell the
Tale," the first volume in a three-part series of memoirs. Garcia
Marquez's new book is a nostalgic look at the people and places that
form the raw material for "One Hundred Years," "Love in the Time of
Cholera," and "Chronicle of a Death Foretold." Garcia Marquez, who
lives most of the year in Mexico City, did not attend the tribute.
Instead, the 1982 recipient of the Nobel prize for literature sent a
short statement of thanks, adding darkly that he "can't remember a
less appropriate time for celebration" than these "evil times" of
war. But that was the only somber note in an evening otherwise
devoted to fond anecdotes or lavish, at times worshipful, praise of
the writer known as "Gabo," or sometimes just The Maestro. "Here was
something vivid, fresh and altogether mesmerizing," the writer Paul
Auster said, recalling how he devoured "One Hundred Years" in a
single sitting. "An imagination, a voice, a sensibility that
resembled nothing I had encountered." The book is "one of those rare
books that changes the way we look at the world," Auster said.
William Kennedy, author of the Pulitzer-winning "Ironweed," quoted
his three-decade old review of "One Hundred Years," calling the
novel "the first piece of literature since the Book of Genesis that
should be required reading for the entire human race." The evening
began with a videotaped message from former President Clinton, who
recalled meeting the author at the home of Rose and William Styron
on Martha's Vineyard and rated "One Hundred Years" as "the greatest
novel in any language of the last 50 years." After Clinton came a
procession of translators and writers _ including Edwidge Danticat;
Francisco Goldman and Jose Manuel Prieto _ who thanked Garcia
Marquez for his literature and his fostering of young journalists
through the Foundation for New Latin American Journalism, an
organization he created in 1994. John Lee Anderson, author of a
comprehensive biography of Che Guevara among other things, said
Garcia Marquez's foundation is fostering a new generation of
writers. "His inspiration, material support and moral example have
been a priceless gift," he said. ___ On the Net:
http://www.fnpi.org/
http://www.nobel.se/literature/laureates/1982/
Source: AP
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