Gabriel García Márquez in Retrospect: A Collection

Gabriel Garcia Marquez in Retrospect gathers fifteen essays by noted scholars in the fields of Latin American literature, politics, and theater. The volume offers broad overviews of the Colombian author’s total body of work, along with closer looks at some of his acknowledged masterpieces. The Nobel laureate’s cultural contexts and influences, his variety of themes, and his formidable legacy (Hispanic, U.S., world-wide) all come up for consideration. New readings of One Hundred Years of Solitude are further complemented by fresh, stimulating, highly detailed examinations of his later novels (Chronicle of a Death Foretold, The General in His Labyrinth, Of Love and Other Demons) and stories (Strange Pilgrims). Further attention is focused on “Gabo’s” labors as journalist and as memoirist (Living to Tell the Tale), and to his sometime relationships with the cinema and the stage. Reactions to his enormous stature on the part of younger writers, including recent signs of backlash, are also given thoughtful scrutiny. Feminist and ecocritical interpretations, plus lively discussions of Gabo’s artful use of humor, character’s names, and even cuisine, are to be found here as well. In the wake of García Márquez’s passing away in 2014, this collection of essays serves as a fitting tribute to one of the world’s greatest literary figures of the twentieth century.

Table of Contents:
Introduction. García Márquez: His Vast Range, His Varied Legacy Gene H. Bell-Villada Part One. Oeuvre, Backgrounds, Legacy 1. García Márquez: Writer for the World Nicholas Birns and Juan De Castro 2. Politics and Death across the Life of Writing Regina Janes 3. Translation and Apprenticeship Edith Grossman 4. García Márquez and mamagallismo: On Fatigued Roosters, Resistance, Sense of Humor, and the Colombian Personality Marcela Velasco Part Two. Re-reading the History of Macondo 5. Names and Narrative Pattern in One Hundred Years of Solitude Gene H. Bell-Villada 6. The Enlightened Blindness of Úrsula Iguarán María del Mar López-Cabrales 7. Satire, Ecocentrism, and Luddite Discourse in One Hundred Years of Solitude: Regional Approaches for a Global Environmental Crisis William Flores 8. Rediscovering Ice: García Márquez, Aira, and Vallejo on Childhood Memories Héctor HoyosPart Three. Later Works 9. After the End: Bolívar in the Labyrinth of History Michael Wood 10. The Magic of Love, the

About the Author :
Gene H. Bell-Villada is professor of Romance languages at Williams College.

Review :
[T]he best homage to a great author is to imagine ways to read his work anew. Gene Bell-Villada’s timely selection of essays does exactly that: it sheds new light on a multifaceted writer that still manages to stimulate the critical imagination of readers from around the world. . . . Among its many virtues, this book reminds us that García Márquez embodied a unique pleasure in the act of writing. Most of the collection’s papers share this “joie d’ecrire,” as they combine rigor, poetry, and a dose of playful wit that suits the analysis of a lyrical mamagallista like Gabo. Among them, Bell-Villada’s own good-humored introduction is unparalleled. This tone allows many of the texts to both celebrate the writer and deal with him in an intellectually nuanced way that, instead of solidifying the icy statue of the canonic author, brings a renewed warmth to his work and makes him, once again, our contemporary. Gene Bell-Villada's new collection of essays provides much for general readers, students and specialists alike, who are offered an array of critical approaches with which to spar, ranging from the contextual, biographical, literary and literary-historical to the ecocritical, demythifying and on occasion densely theoretical. Particularly welcome is the volume's emphasis on García Márquez's later writing. This exemplary collection of essays is illuminating, ample, accessible, and ultimately essential for understanding how García Márquez is read today.