A set of speeches given over the course of his long literary career offers snapshots of the Colombian author’s uniquely eloquent humanitarian voice and vision.
García Márquez (1927-2014), the author of such classics as One Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera and winner of the 1982 Nobel Prize for Literature, was a passionate advocate for his Latin American culture and identity. In his Nobel speech, “The Solitude of Latin American,” he expresses his heartfelt hope that the Swedish Academy was ultimately recognizing through his work the underappreciated richness of the Latin American imagination, “because the greatest challenge for us has been the insufficiency of conventional devices to make our lives believable.” His idealistic vision of cultural rapprochement shines through many of these speeches, as he offers a plea for the convergence of sciences and arts (“for the questioning of both is the same over the same abyss”) and the significant role of the intellectual in society. Throughout his life, García Márquez was a fierce activist for social change. In “The Cataclysm of Damocles” (1986), he laments that in the nuclear age, the only reason we have not annihilated ourselves in a cosmic disaster is that “the preservation of human life on Earth continues to be cheaper than the nuclear plague. In “The Beloved Though Distant Homeland” (2003), delivered in Medellin, he rues Colombia’s devastating proliferation of narco-violence. Friendship forms the theme of two of the most affecting speeches, in which he celebrates the work of Álvaro Mutis (1993) and Julio Cortázar. Elsewhere, García Márquez reveals his deep roots in poetry and journalism. Regarding the latter, during a 1996 speech in Los Angeles, he presciently noted that the discipline was dangerously veering into a terrain of "innocent or deliberate mistakes, vicious manipulations, and venomous misrepresentations that give the news article the dimensions of a deadly weapon.”
Essential truths in the rare and generous voice of a maestro.Pub Date: Jan. 8, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-101-91118-1
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Vintage
Review Posted Online: Oct. 14, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2018
Categories: GENERAL NONFICTION
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
Categories: GENERAL NONFICTION
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
Categories: GENERAL NONFICTION
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