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Vivir para contarla (Spanish Edition)
 
 
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Vivir para contarla (Spanish Edition) [Deckle Edge] [Hardcover]

Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Author)
4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (34 customer reviews)

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This Book Is Bound with "Deckle Edge" Paper
You may have noticed that some of our books are identified as "deckle edge" in the title. Deckle edge books are bound with pages that are made to resemble handmade paper by applying a frayed texture to the edges. Deckle edge is an ornamental feature designed to set certain titles apart from books with machine-cut pages. See a larger image.

Book Description

November 29, 2002
Vivir para contarla is the extraordinary story of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s early life. It is a recreation of his formative years, from his birth in Colombia in 1927, through his evocative childhood to the time he became a journalist. The Nobel laureate offers us the memory of his childhood and adolescence, the years that shaped his creative imagination, and, with time, would become the basis of the fiction that makes up much of twentieth-century literature in Spanish and indeed the world.

In these pages Garcia Marquez reveals the echoes of peoples and stories that we meet in One Hundred Years of Solitude, Love in the Time of Cholera, No One Writes to the Colonel, and Chronicle of a Death Foretold. Vivir para contarla is a guide to readers of his entire work, an indispensable companion to many unforgettable passages which, with the reading of this memoir acquire a new perspective.

The description from the book:

Vivir para contarla es, probablemente, el libro más esperado de la década, compendio y recreación de un tiempo crucial en la vida de Gabriel García Márquez. En este apasionante relato, el premio Nobel colombiano ofrece la memoria de sus años de infancia y juventud, aquellos en los que se fundaría el imaginario que, con el tiempo, daría lugar a algunos de los relatos y novelas fundamentales en la literatura en lengua española del siglo XX.

Estamos ante la novela de una vida a través de cuyas páginas García Márquez va descubriendo ecos de personajes e historias que han poblado obras como Cien años de soledad, El amor en los tiempos del cólera, El coronel no tiene quien le escriba o Crónica de una muerte anunciada y convierten Vivir para contarla en una guía de lectura para toda su obra, en acompañante imprescindible para iluminar pasajes inolvidables que, tras la lectura de estas memorias, adquieren una nueva perspectiva.

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Since last October's long-awaited release of this first volume in a trilogy of Garcia Marquez's memoirs, readers in Spain and Latin America have been wondering whether the book is fiction or nonfiction. Can one of the greatest storytellers of the 20th century, winner of the 1982 Nobel for literature, write about his life without confusing reality and fictional adventures? Well, yes and no. At first glance, Garcia Marquez's vivid and detailed portrait of his early life (just released in Spanish in the U.S.) appears to be testament to a photographic memory. Yet as he explains in the epigraph, "Life isn't what one lived, but what one remembers and how one remembers it to tell it." He warns readers that memories are not just fact or fiction, but maybe a mix of both, depending on how one recalls past events.The book begins as Garcia Marquez returns to his hometown of Aracataca with his mother to sell the family's house. The narrative becomes a journey through Colombian history, starting with the writer's childhood in Aracataca and ending in 1957 at age 29, when he traveled abroad for the first time. Snapshot passages about his life as a student and a traveler on Colombia's most important river, the Magdalena, as well as the beginnings of his journalism career, are vividly narrated. Colombia's violent history is always in the background, as Garcia Marquez recalls such historical episodes as the Bananeras massacre, a banana labor strike in 1928 that escalated into the massive slaughter of United Fruit Company workers, and the Bogotazo, a 1948 uprising by the Liberal party that resulted in massive destruction and looting in the country's capital. This first volume reflects Garcia Marquez's experience as both a novelist and a journalist. While his prose is literary, in his imaginative signature style, the historical content is as rigorously researched as journalistic works like his most recent News of a Kidnapping. Readers will also find references to characters and places from the author's classics, including Love in the Time of Cholera, One Hundred Years of Solitude and Chronicle of a Death Foretold. Some may be tempted to use the trilogy as a manual for interpreting the author's oeuvre. But avid readers will find that Garcia Marquez's fictions are instead guides to understanding the first 592 pages of his life; anyone familiar with Macondo, the fantastic town in One Hundred Years of Solitude, will readily appreciate the writer's descriptions of Aracataca, for instance. This memoir is one of the greatest literary adventures to date from this Nobelist.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

“Un gran libro … En un mundo que sufre cada vez más de lo inverosímil, García Márquez le vuelve a levantar las faldas a la realidad, esta vez sirviéndose de la realidad misma”. —Gioconda Belli, Los Angeles Times

“De todos los libros admirables que ha escrito, éste es el que nos ofrece el retrato más fiel de García Márquez”. —Tomás Eloy Martínez, El País

“Un libro espléndido, unas memorias … que nos franquean el acceso a un mundo privado”. —Joaquín Marco, El Mundo

“Combina de elegancia, capricho y precisión coloquial que han definido el genio de su ficción”. —Houston Chronicle

Product Details

  • Hardcover: 592 pages
  • Publisher: Knopf; 1St Edition edition (November 29, 2002)
  • Language: Spanish
  • ISBN-10: 1400041066
  • ISBN-13: 978-1400041060
  • Product Dimensions: 6 x 1.8 x 9.5 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (34 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #106,932 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

34 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
4.8 out of 5 stars (34 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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26 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Obra indispensable de un genio del lenguaje, November 21, 2002
By 
This review is from: Vivir para Contarla (Paperback)
Este primer volumen de las memorias de García Márquez me la enviaron desde Colombia como un regalo.
Para los amantes de Gabo, como yo, el libro es de una dimensión extraordinaria!
En un cambio total de género, ésta autobiografía demuestra que GGM es uno de los mejores escritores de nuestro tiempo. Gabo convierte su vida real y la de su familia en un relato inolvidable. Se develan los misterios de los personajes de sus obras, se es testigo de su vida como escritor, de su vida como ser humano. Se es testigo de la historia de Colombia.
Lo leí muy despacio para que no se me acabaran tan rápido sus 579 páginas. Cuando por fin lo terminé de leer sentí el desasosiego de querer más. Sólo espero que no se tarde mucho el segundo tomo
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17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Uno de los mejores..., September 25, 2003
By 
Denisse Comarazamy "Francine" (Sto. Dgo., Republica Dominicana) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Vivir para contarla (Spanish Edition) (Hardcover)
Definitivamente es uno de los mejores libros que he leído, es fascinante como Gabriel García Márquez describe su vida, principalmente su juventud y sus inicios como periodista y escritor...

Siendo una ávida lectora de este autor, no podía más que maravillarme por cada uno de los aspectos de su vida. Como viniendo de una familia pobre logra sus sueños de ser escritor a pesar de la oposición inicial de sus padres. Este primer libro sólo llega hasta el lanzamiento de "La hojarasca" y hasta su primer viaje fuera de Colombia (Europa)...

Al acercarme cada vez más al final, más trataba de demorarlo, fue MARAVILLOSO leer este libro!!!, GGM nos deja preparados para el próximo libro, lamentablemente debemos esperar, pero la espera será gratificada cuando lo tengamos en nuestras manos.
Uno de los aspectos más relevantes es la forma en que fue escrito, es decir, como García Márquez entrelaza su realidad con la realidad del país y como en algún momento me pareció estar leyendo una solo historia, no la de un hombre y su país.

Creo que lo mejor antes de leer "Vivir para contarla" es haber leído algunas de sus obras, para mí particularmente fue así, ver referencias de libros que ya he tenido la fortuna de leer fue muy edificante, me ayudó a entender mucho más a este premio novel (1982), a conocer las historias que dieron origen a muchos de sus libros, como "La hojarasca", "Cien años de soledad", "Crónica de una muerte anunciada", "Relato de un náufrago", "Del Amor y Otros Demonios" entre otros, a saber como surge el famoso pueblo ficticio "Macondo", así como a entender un sinnúmero de personajes que a lo largo de su carrera ha utilizado en sus libros y que de alguna manera lo tocaron en su propia vida.

Gabriel García Márquez ha demostrado nueva vez que es un genio de la literatura latinoamericana, su forma de escribir nunca acabará de sorprenderme y de cautivarme. Definitivamente todas aquellas personas interesadas en conocer más a "Gabito" deberían comprar y guardar en su colección de libros más preciados "Vivir para Contarla".

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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars What a wonderful life!, November 22, 2002
By 
Eugenio D. Beltran (Tucker, GA United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Vivir para Contarla (Paperback)
This is much more than an autobiography, it is a piece of art by itself. Gabo takes us around his extended family in northern Colombia in an encyclopedic journey throughout life, love, history and the magical world he depicted in his previous work. Those who have read his novels will find the inspiration for some of his characters and stories. There is no question about it: he enjoys to "novelar" as he describes the way to write novels. His foreword tells you all: Life is not what you have lived, but the what you remember, and how you remember it to tell it (my translation)
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