The Colombian Minister of Culture, Patricia Ariza, highlighted this Saturday the close relationship of the writer Gabriel García Márquez with Cuba during a tribute held at the Havana International Book Fair.
Ariza described it as a “privilege” to be able to witness one of the meetings between the Nobel Prize for Literature (1982) and former Cuban President Fidel Castro, of whom he was a great friend.
In the discussion held at the Morro-Cabaña complex (one of the venues for the Havana fair), the minister lamented that “Colombia has not been generous enough with Gabo,” as García Márquez was known.
“I have a dream that One Hundred Years of Solitude It is written all over the walls of my country,” said Ariza when speaking at the meeting.
For his part, the co-founder of the Gabo Foundation, Jaime Abello, considered that the author of texts such as The colonel has no one to write to him and News of a kidnapping “He had a formidable relationship and an endearing friendship with Fidel” (Castro).
“Havana was his second home,” Abello specified when reviewing the beginnings of the relationship between García Márquez and Cuban intellectuals.
The books were also presented at the meeting. Cinema according to García Márquezby Cuban film critic Joel del Río, and Contrary loves. García Márquez and the cinemaby the Costa Rican María Lourdes Cortés.
Cuba became one of the ports of the novelist’s life, where he lived, worked and could be found at a concert, teaching screenwriting classes or touring a tobacco plantation.
“It’s not that I live in Cuba, it’s that I travel here so much that it seems like I’m here permanently,” said the Colombian in 2007, regarding his frequent visits, most of them private.
García Márquez was a founder on the island of the International Festival of New Latin American Cinema, of the International Film and Television School and of the New Latin American Cinema Foundation, which he presided over.
Colombia is the guest country of honor at the 31st International Book Fair, which opened its doors last Thursday and will culminate in Havana on February 19 and then continue to other provinces for a month.
The event is attended by 120 exhibitors from at least 40 nations and takes place simultaneously in the iconic Morro-Cabaña military historical complex, the Havana historical center and other sub-venues such as the Casa de las Américas.
