My Favorite Literary Encounters: Gabriel García Márquez

About 20 years ago I was in Mexico City, having dinner with my friends, the writers Carmen Boullosa and Carlos Fuentes, at Carmen’s house in Coyoacán. The name of García Márquez came up, and Carlos, talking humorously about Gabo’s gigantic presence in the world of Latin American letters, said, “You know, it’s now impossible for any of us to use the word ‘solitude’ without somebody thinking we are making a reference to One Hundred Years of Solitude. I’m really afraid that soon it will also become impossible to use the phrase ‘one hundred years.’”

I asked if García Márquez was in town - he was mainly living in Mexico City in those days - and Fuentes said, “No, he’s in Havana, visiting his pal Fidel.” I was disappointed, because I had never met him. “If he was here we could have arranged a meeting,” Fuentes said, “but sadly you lost out to Castro.” Then he added, “Of all the writers in the world, it’s crazy that you two have never met,” and he got up and left the room.

When he returned, he beckoned to me to follow him. “There’s a phone call for you,” he said, “and you really ought to take it.” He had called Havana and told García Márquez I was with him, and Gabo had agreed to talk to me.

My spoken Spanish is close to nonexistent, although I can understand things if people speak slowly and clearly and don’t use too many complicated words. García Márquez claimed (incorrectly, in my opinion) that he knew very little English. And we both spoke French at about the same level. So our conversation swung back and forth between those three languages.

Strangely, in my memory of the conversation, there is no language problem. As I remember it, we were just speaking to each other, warmly and openly. During the course of our talk he paid me the greatest compliment I have ever been paid by another writer.

“At my age,” he said, “I no longer read very much outside the Spanish language. But there are two writers in English about whom I think, I want to know what they are doing. One of them is J.M. Coetzee, and the other is you.”

I have tried to repay that compliment ever since, by writing and lecturing about his work. It was a moment to treasure, and I treasure it still.

We never met face to face. But, thanks to Carlos Fuentes, at least we had that phone call.

Now they are both gone. All of us who were their ardent readers miss them both.