Gabriel García Márquez, página 6 de 25

In 1990, fearing extradition to the United States, Pablo Escobar – head of the Medellín drug cartel – kidnapped ten notable Colombians to use as bargaining chips. With the eye of a poet, García Márqu

La obra comienza con la muerte de Jeremías de Saint-Amour, un emigrante haitiano amigo del doctor Juvenal Urbino, uno de los protagonistas de la historia. El fallecimiento de su amigo causa en el doctor Urbino un fuerte sentimiento de que su muerte se aproxima, como una premonición. La evoca el mismo día de su trágico final, recordando el día de su niñez en que su padre le recuerda que llegado a cierta edad, al morir, ni sus hijos lo iban a recordar con la edad de su muerte. Su esposa, Fermina Daza, fue su acompañante incondicional durante unos 50 años de un matrimonio transformado por la paciencia de vivir juntos tantos años, pues Fermina se casó con Juvenal llena de dudas. Después de la muerte del doctor Urbino en un episodio caracterizado por el estilo literario de Gabriel García Márquez, se presenta ante la viuda Florentino Ariza,un hombre enamorado de Fermina desde hacía cincuenta años, cuando él era joven y ella solo una niña que iba al colegio. Ambos entablan una relación puramente escrita, que luego se ve truncada por el padre de Fermina, quien al descubrir el romance en que su hija se veía envuelta hace que emprenda un largo viaje de "olvido" hacia la casa de unos parientes en otro pueblo. Pero aún así, y gracias al telégrafo, los jóvenes logran mantenerse en contacto. Al pasar el tiempo y los años, su padre decide que ha llegado el momento del regreso, y es cuando Fermina al regresar y caminando por las calles de su pueblo se encuentra con Florentino; descubre que en realidad no era el hombre idealizado por ella en sus cartas de amor, por lo que lo rechaza y al tiempo conoce a Juvenal Urbino y se casa con él. Florentino Ariza, al borde del suicidio, es enviado por su madre a viajar y en ese viaje descubre su sexualidad, que procuraba mantener intacta guardando su virginidad para Fermina, por lo que a partir de ese momento empieza a tener aventuras con incontables y distintas mujeres, pero sin lograr olvidar a Fermina.

Pablo Escobar: billionaire drugs baron, brutal killer, terrified of the new Colombian President's determination to extradite him to America, found the best bargaining tools he could find: hostages. Ten relatives of Colombian politicians were abducted and held hostage as Escobar attempted to strong-arm the government into blocking his extradition.

'On the day they were going to kill him, Santiago Nasar got up at five-thirty in the morning to wait for the boat the bishop was coming on' When newly-wed Angela Vicario and Bayardo San Roman are left to their wedding night, Bayardo discovers that his new wife is no virgin. Disgusted, he returns Angela to her family home that very night, where her humiliated mother beats her savagely and her two brothers demand to know her violator, whom she names as Santiago Nasar. As he wakes to thoughts of the previous night's revelry, Santiago is unaware of the slurs that have been cast against him. But with Angela's brothers set on avenging their family honour, soon the whole town knows who they plan to kill, where, when and why.

In their youth, Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza fall passionately in love. When Fermina eventually chooses to marry a wealthy, well-born doctor, Florentino is devastated, but he is a romantic. As he rises in his business career he whiles away the years in 622 affairs--yet he reserves his heart for Fermina. Her husband dies at last, and Florentino purposefully attends the funeral. Fifty years, nine months, and four days after he first declared his love for Fermina, he will do so again.

Florentino Ariza has never forgotten his first love. He has waited nearly a lifetime in silence since his beloved Fermina married another man. No woman can replace her in his heart. But now her husband is dead. Finally - after fifty-one years, nine months and four days - Florentino has another chance to declare his eternal passion and win her back. Will love that has survived half a century remain unrequited?

«El esfuerzo de escribir un cuento corto es tan intenso como empezar una novela. Pues en el primer párrafo de una novela hay que definir todo: estructura, tono, estilo, ritmo, longitud, y aveces hast

Fifty-one years, nine months and four days have passed since Fermina Daza rebuffed hopeless romantic Florentino Arizas impassioned advances and married Dr. Juvenal Urbino instead. During that half century, Florentino has fallen into the arms of many delighted women, but has loved none but Fermina. Having sworn his eternal love to her, he lives for the day when he can court her again. When Ferminas husband is killed trying to retrieve his pet parrot from a mango tree, Florentino seizes his chance to declare his enduring love. But can young love find new life in the twilight of their lives? This edition ties in to Mike Newell''s long-awaited film of Love in the Time of Cholera, starring Benjamin Bratt (Traffic), which is due for release in January 2008.

The year I turned ninety, I wanted to give myself the gift of a night of wild love with an adolescent virgin. I thought of Rosa Cabarcas, the owner of an illicit house who would inform her good clients when she had a new girl available. I never succumbed to that or to any of her many other lewd temptations, but she did not believe in the purity of my principles. Morality, too, is a question of time, she would say with a malevolent smile, you''ll see. She was a little younger than I, and I hadn''t heard anything about her for so many years that she very well might have died. But after the first ring I recognized the voice on the phone, and with no preambles I fired at her: "Today''s the day." She sighed: Ah, my sad scholar, you disappear for twenty years and come back only to ask for the impossible. She regained mastery of her art at once and offered me half a dozen delectable options, but all of them, to be frank, were used. I said no, insisting the girl had to be a virgin and available that very night. She asked in alarm: What are you trying to prove? Nothing, I replied, wounded to the core, I know very well what I can and cannot do. Unmoved, she said that scholars may know it all, but they don''t know everything: The only Virgos left in the world are people like you who were born in August. Why didn''t you give me more time? Inspiration gives no warnings, I said. But perhaps it can wait, she said, always more knowledgeable than any man, and she asked for just two days to make a thorough investigation of the market. I replied in all seriousness that in an affair such as this, at my age, each hour is like a year. Then it can''t be done, she said without the slightest doubt, but it doesn''t matter, it''s more exciting this way, what the hell, I''ll call you in an hour. I don''t have to say so because people can see it from leagues away: I''m ugly, shy, and anachronistic. But by dint of not wanting to be those things I have pretended to be just the opposite. Until today, when I have resolved to tell of my own free will just what I''m like, if only to ease my conscience. I have begun with my unusual call to Rosa Cabarcas because, seen from the vantage point of today, that was the beginning of a new life at an age when most mortals have already died. I live in a col

Whilst her grotesque and demanding grandmother retires to bed, Eréndira still has floors to wash, sheets to iron, and a peacock to feed. The never-ending chores leave the young girl so exhausted that she collapses into bed with the candle still glowing on a nearby table - and is fast asleep when it topples over… Eight hundred and seventy-two thousand, three hundred and fifteen pesos, her grandmother calculates, is the amount that Eréndira must repay her for the loss of the house. As she is dragged by her grandmother from town to town and hawked to soldiers, smugglers and traders, Eréndira feels herself dying. Can the love of a virgin save the young whore from her hell?