García Márquez's Next Novel Announced

by Ximena Diego -- Críticas, 5/1/2008 8:58:00 PM

Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez is finishing up his next novel, which could be published as early as August of this year, said Radio Caracol’s news director, Darío Arizmendi. The journalist, a long-time friend of García Márquez, anticipated that the novel is a love story. “I was fortunate enough to be with the writer in Mexico this past weekend and I can assure you that he is polishing up his novel,” said Arizmendi on Tuesday.

The novel was “in the freezer” for many years and was a work-in-progress for several months. “He wrote one draft, he didn’t like it. Then he wrote another one and yet another one, until he wrote a fifth draft…. It is now ready,” said Arizmendi.

The novel, approximately 250 pages long, does not have a title yet. As it often happens, says Arizmendi, García Márquez “leaves this for the very end.”

The recipient of the Nobel Literature Prize in 1982, García Márquez is also working on the second volume of his memoir, the sequel to Vivir para contarla (Living to Tell the Tale, Random House, 2003). His last novel, Memorias de mis putas tristes (Memory of My Melancholy Whores, Knopf) was published in 2004.