Barcelona today has not stopped looking at the clock, patiently waiting for 6:30 p.m. to arrive. At that time, Gabriel García Márquez’s posthumous book, In August See You (Random House), was presented to the world in the Barcelona library that bears his name and is recognized as the best in the world. The expectation was maximum. Not even some activists, who just before starting the media meeting took advantage of the presence of Mayor Collboni to denounce the lack of foresight in the face of the drought emergency situation, managed to ensure that the literary gem was relegated.
That the Catalan capital is the city chosen for this presentation is not trivial. Barcelona was a place of metamorphosis for Gabriel García Márquez. It was here where he grew literary and managed to mutate from a minority author to a world-renowned novelist. A giant step that only a few writers reach in their career and that explains the commotion created to be able to attend this event, where it was necessary to make a reservation in advance.
That did not prevent dozens from attending to the author’s son, Gonzalo García Barcha – who lived part of his childhood here –; to the writer Héctor Abad Faciolince; journalist Xavi Ayén, expert on the Latin American boom; and the actress Bárbara Lennie, who read fragments of this unpublished work, accompanied by the music of the Ana Magdalena Ensemble. “This book is full of music,” said editor Pilar Reyes.
“When Gabo left us, he was quite clear, because he said that this had to be destroyed. But that statement went totally against everything that our parents instilled in us, who educated us to promote, respect and preserve any creative work,” García Barcha began the presentation. His firstborn, however, recognized within a few minutes that his father paid his mother “a small amount of money” for the love letters he sent her, and once he had them, He burned them.
“He always had a very particular instinct for posterity and a somewhat prophetic faculty, anticipating things that have later happened.” One of them was newly married, when his father-in-law, sad at separating from Mercedes, told him not to worry, that in ten years he would become someone rich and famous. “Imagine the audacity,” his son admits.
García Barcha said that they read the book while Gabo was still alive. “We were able to read it, but it was less finished than his other works that he let us read before publishing. “He continued writing and, two years later, he released his lapidary phrase.” In the summer of two years ago, something changed. “I was in Empordà and I had that pending conversation with my brother Rodrigo. He asked me what we were going to do and I suggested giving it to an editor to see if it was publishable. Cristóbal, editor of his latest works, had read it much more deeply than us and did not seem to have any doubts.
The children accepted. However, Gonzalo has warned the massive audience today: “If readers do not give that vote of approval to the novel, it will not be republished and it will not have revisions.” He has also acknowledged that “the idea that this would become the hidden or lost novel of a certain author bothered me. “We knew that sooner or later the novel was going to end up coming out, and it is possible that the edition could evolve as long as the text is liked by readers.”
The work remained for a long time in the author’s archive at the University of Austin. There, “anyone who wanted it and asked for permission could read it,” Gonzalo recalled while applauding the impulse of the Colombian journalist Patricia Lara, who was the first to do so and who “already made progress at the time that made a good impression on her.” .
He also caused it himself, while at the same time it touched him “to see how in the corrections there was a point that he doubted in each word and crossed it out, until he found the most convenient one. That is a beautiful thing and reflects very well how he once described the profession of a writer: a poor man sitting six hours a day in front of a typewriter with the commitment to tell a story that is both compelling and beautiful. And this novel has those two virtues.” Some qualities that, he assures, also have the cover of the book, illustrated by David de las Heras, which both the first-born and the public have applauded.
