The Scandal of the Century

Oct 30, 2024 7:24 AM

Author:Gabriel Garcia Marquez

A new collection of journalism from one of the great titans of 20th century literature

"I don't want to be remembered for One Hundred Years of Solitude or for the Nobel Prize but rather for my journalism," Gabriel García Márquez said in the final years of his life. And while some of his journalistic writings have been made available over the years, this is the first volume to gather a representative selection from across the first four decades of his career--years during which he worked as a full-time, often muckraking, and controversial journalist, even as he penned the fiction that would bring him the Nobel Prize in 1982. Here are the first pieces he wrote while working for newspapers in the coastal Colombian cities of Cartagena and Barranquilla . . . his longer, more fictionlike reportage from Paris and Rome . . . his monthly columns for Spain's El País. And while all the work points in style, wit, depth, and passion to his fiction, these fifty pieces are, more than anything, a revelation of the writer working at the profession he believed to be "the best in the world."

'García Márquez always thought of himself as a journalist first and foremost and this brilliant collection goes a long way towards justifying that belief.' Salman Rushdie

Reviews

García Márquez always thought of himself as a journalist first and foremost and this brilliant collection goes a long way towards justifying that belief. Or, at least, it puts his journalism on the same level as his fiction, which is quite some level.

—— Salman Rushdie

The articles and columns in The Scandal of the Century demonstrate that his forthright, lightly ironical voice just seemed to be there, right from the start. . . . He's among those rare great fiction writers whose ancillary work is almost always worth finding. . . . He had a way of connecting the souls in all his writing, fiction and nonfiction, to the melancholy static of the universe.

—— The New York Times

In his journalism, García Márquez's prose was as precise, euphonious and inventive as it was in his fiction. Only a magician of a translator like Anne McLean could get it right. For anyone who has been enthralled by One Hundred Years of Solitude, The Scandal of the Century is an essential book.

—— Juan Gabriel Vásquez, author of The Sound of Things Falling

Quite unlike anything else being published ... One of the most unique voices in the field ... His imagery is breathtaking

—— Science Fiction Chronicle

(Ligotti uses) restrained, lyrical prose and subtly disturbing images that Poe himself might well have admired

—— USA Today

Orwell saw … that the act of falsifying reality is only secondarily a way of changing perceptions. It is, above all, a way of asserting power

—— Adam Gopnik , New Yorker

[Orwell fought] the evils of the world and the weakness of his body to the day of his death, always striving, striving to tell the truth about what he saw and what he felt

—— Nicholas Walter , Anarchy: A Journal of Anarchist Ideas

Previous Article：Dance To The Music Of Time Volume 1 Next Article：On Power

Comments

Welcome to zzdbook comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.