Read Living to Tell the Tale Online
Authors: Gabriel García Márquez,Edith Grossman
Living to Tell the Tale (69 page)
‘My favourite book by one of the world’s greatest authors. You’re in the hands of a master’ Mariella Frostrup
‘On the day they were going to kill him, Santiago Nasar got up at five-thirty in the morning to wait for the boat the bishop
was coming on …’
When newly-wed Ángela Vicario and Bayardo San Román are left to their wedding night, Bayardo discovers that his new wife is no virgin. Disgusted, he returns Ángela to her family home that very night, where her humiliated mother beats her savagely and her two brothers demand to know her violator, whom she names as Santiago Nasar.
As he wakes to thoughts of the previous night’s
revelry, Santiago is unaware of the slurs that have been cast against him. But with Ángela’s brothers set on avenging their family honour, soon the whole town knows who they plan to kill, where, when and why.
‘A masterpiece’
Evening Standard
‘A work of high explosiveness – the proper stuff of Nobel prizes. An exceptional novel’
The Times
‘Brilliant writer, brilliant book’
Guardian
‘The stories are rich and unsettling, confident and eloquent. They are magical’ John Updike
Sweeping through crumbling towns, travelling fairs and windswept ports, Gabriel García Márquez introduces a host of extraordinary characters and communities
in his mesmerising tales of everyday life: smugglers, bagpipers, the President and Pope at the funeral of Macondo’s revered matriarch; a very old angel with enormous wings. Teeming with the magical oddities for which his novels are loved, Márquez’s stories are a delight.
‘These stories abound with love affairs, ruined beauty, and magical women. It is essence of Márquez’
Guardian
‘Of all the
living authors known to me, only one is undoubtedly touched by genius: Gabriel García Márquez’
Sunday Telegraph
‘Márquez writes in this lyrical, magical language that no one else can do’ Salman Rushdie
‘A masterly book’
Guardian
‘César Montero was dreaming about elephants. He’d seen them at the movies on Sunday ...’
Only moments later, César is led away by police as they clear the crowds away from the man he has just killed.
But César is not the only
man to be riled by the rumours being spread in his Colombian hometown – under the cover of darkness, someone creeps through the streets sticking malicious posters to walls and doors. Each night the respectable townsfolk retire to their beds fearful that they will be the subject of the following morning’s lampoons.
As paranoia seeps through the town and the delicate veil of tranquility begins
to slip, can the perpetrator be uncovered before accusation and violence leave the inhabitants’ sanity in tatters?
‘
In Evil Hour
was the book which was to inspire my own career as a novelist. I owe my writing voice to that one book!’ Jim Crace
‘Belongs to the very best of Márquez’s work … Should on no account be missed’
Financial Times
‘A splendid achievement’
The Times
‘These stories abound with love affairs, ruined beauty, and magical women. It is the essence of Márquez’
Guardian
‘Eréndira was bathing her grandmother when the wind of misfortune began to blow …’
Whilst her grotesque and demanding
grandmother retires to bed, Eréndira still has floors to wash, sheets to iron, and a peacock to feed. The never-ending chores leave the young girl so exhausted that she collapses into bed with the candle still glowing on a nearby table – and is fast asleep when it topples over …
Eight hundred and seventy-two thousand, three hundred and fifteen pesos, her grandmother calculates, is the amount
that Eréndira must repay her for the loss of the house. As she is dragged by her grandmother from town to town and hawked to soldiers, smugglers and traders, Eréndira feels herself dying. Can the love of a virgin save the young whore from her hell?
‘It becomes more and more fun to read. It shows what “fabulous” really means’
Time Out
‘Márquez writes in this lyrical, magical language that no-one
else can do’ Salman Rushdie
‘One of this century’s most evocative writers’ Anne Tyler