Gabriel Garcia Marquez by Gabriel García Márquez

read without writing, we’ll see how long I can make it last. I think I’ve earned it. With everything I’ve written, you know? Though if tomorrow I come up with a novel, how marvelous it would be! Really, with the practice I have, it’d be no problem to finish: I’d sit in front of my computer and churn it out … but people can tell if you haven’t really put your guts into something. Over there behind me all the technological devices are turned on, ready to join in on the action the day that happens. I would love to come up with an idea, but I don’t feel the need to sit down and invent one. People should know that, if I publish anything else, it will be because it’s well worthwhile.
    â€œYou know,” he adds, “I don’t wake up scared in the middle of the night anymore, after dreaming about the deaths of the people from the stories my grandmother used to tell in Aracataca, when I was a little boy, and I think that these things are related, this and the fact that the ideas have stopped coming to me.”
    His latest “idea” to date was
Memories of My Melancholy Whores
, a short novel published in 2004 that millions of readers all over the world hope won’t be his last. “It wasn’t even planned,” he reveals now. “Really, it comes out of an earlier plan; I’d imagined a series of stories like this one, all about prostitutes. A while back I wrote four or five stories, but the only one I liked in the end was the last; I realized that I couldn’t get as much out of the idea as I’d thought, that what I’d really been working toward was that one story, and so I decided to throw out the first ones and publish the last on its own.”
    Another project he was working on, a project that has since been stalled, was the story of a man doomed to die after writing his last sentence. “But I thought: careful, it might happen to you …”
    Gabo doesn’t seem distressed by his creative drought, and instead views it with a carefree attitude that’s very Caribbean. “My life hasn’t changed now that I’ve stopped writing, and that’s for the better! The hours it used to fill haven’t been commandeered by any harmful activities.”
    The writer draws our attention to the large yellow doll we noticed when we first came in: “It was hand-made in Mexico, a gift from Felipe González, * who comes around here a lot.” We then start to talk about his fascination with power, and the different politicians and ex-politicians that visit him. “As a writer, I’m interested in power, becausein it can be found all the greatness and misery of human existence.”
    He mentions his friendship with Clinton. “Have you met? He’s a wonderful guy! I never have such a good time as when I’m with him. AIDS is what he’s really worried about these days, he’s sincerely shocked and disturbed by how little attention the authorities are paying to the alarming spread of the disease into new zones, especially the Caribbean. They’re not listening to him, but nobody knows more than he does about the issue.”
    He takes us to see his home movie theater. “It’s very difficult for me to make it to the normal screenings, I spend hours and hours giving out autographs at the door. This way they send the films here; otherwise, they invite me to private screenings.”
    His passion for the seventh art isn’t new: when he was young, he even dreamed of being a director, a dream his son Rodrigo, a constant presence at prestigious film festivals like Cannes, Locarno, and San Sebastián, later fulfilled. Rodrigo, in addition to having directed episodes of
The Sopranos
and
Six Feet Under
, is responsible for the feature films
Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her, Ten Tiny Love Stories
, and
Nine Lives
. “It’s a good thing they’re so excellent,” his