Consumed these past twenty years by a "biblical holocaust," Colombia has endured leftist insurgencies, right-wing death squads, currency collapses, cholera epidemics, and, most recently and corrosively, drug trafficking. Returning to his days as a reporter for El Espectador, Gabriel Garcia Marquez chronicles, with consummate skill, the period in late 1990 when Colombian security forces mounted a nationwide manhunt for Pablo Escobar, the ruthless and elusive head of the Medelln cartel. Ten men and women were abducted by Escobar's henchmen and used as bargaining chips against extradition to the United States. From the testimonies and diaries of the survivors, Garcia Marquez reconstructs their bizarre ordeal with cinematic intensity, breathtaking language, and rigor. We are drawn into a world that, like some phantasmagorical setting in a great Garcia Marquez novel, we can scarcely believe exists--but that continually shocks us with its cold, hard reality.
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During the 1980s, the government of Colombia signed a treaty with the United States allowing for the extradition of Colombian citizens. This caused a great deal of distress among the kingpins of the Medellín drug cartel. Why? Traffickers like Pablo Escobar had spent the decade exporting billions of dollars' worth of cocaine. They weren't likely to be arrested at home, but if extradited and tried in America, they would spend the rest of their lives in prison.
Escobar and his colleagues tried to a cut a deal with the government. Then Escobar decided that a little extralegal pressure--i.e., terrorism--could do no harm. In short order he had 10 prominent Colombians kidnapped; most were journalists, and all had professional or personal ties to the pro-extradition movement. Ultimately two of the hostages were shot. The remaining eight were released in a trickle, as the drug traffickers began to break ranks and surrender. So ended at least one episode in what Gabriel García Márquez calls "the biblical holocaust that has been consuming Colombia for more than twenty years."
García Márquez was originally invited to write about the kidnapping by Maruja Pachon, who spent six months in captivity. As he began to write, however, he realized that her story was inseparable from that of the other nine victims. The result is a meticulous, sobering, and suspenseful book. It is, of course, a work of reportage, which puts a lid on the author's penchant for magic realism. But in the hands of a writer like García Márquez, truth makes fiction look paltry indeed. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Library Journal
Garcia Marquez, Latin America's Nobel prize-winning novelist, turns his hand for the first time to nonfiction to explain, through one individual's experience, the widespread kidnapping in Colombia. Although focusing on Maruja Pachon's six months in captivity and her prominent husband's efforts to obtain her release, the book is really about the 1990 abduction of ten individuals by drug traffickers hoping to prevent their extradition to the United States. As he does so memorably in his fiction, the author captures the political intricacies and strange, deep involvement of drug dealers in Colombian life, turning what as easily could have been an imagined story into a fascinating exploration of contemporary culture, politics, and drug lords. Highly recommended.?Roderic A. Camp, Latin American Ctr., Tulane Univ., New Orleans
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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SHE LOOKED OVER her shoulder before getting into the car to be sure no one was following her. Read the first page
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Format:Paperback
This is my first attempt at GGM's work. The author's writing style is very different in accounting the events happened during that kidnap saga. As he explains the events unfolding, he carefully adds the background information of the appropriate character(s) involved in the scene and he gets back to the present by providing the correct dose of the past. Though the reader aware of the victims killed, the heart races every time the government forces goof up and we wonder whom going to get killed. That means successful writing. The book details the exhaustive account of how all the sides acted during the period of kidnapping, how professionally and emotionally the victims' families handle the situations. The author explains them in a measured quantity rather than tiring the reader with too many deatils.
The translation is great and I can't help feeling that Edith Grossman got into GGM's mind and translate it exactly what he was trying to put it. Very rare I come across a translator like that.
Worth reading.
Format:Hardcover
When you walk into a bookstore and go to the history section, and look for latinamerican history, you will find this book there. It is absolutely outrageous that this book is sold as if it were titled "A History of Colombia".
Kidnapping is a phenomena that has plagued Colombia for some time now, as it provides the economic means for the civil war in Colombia. However, kidnapping is not the axis our major point of our history.
This very well written book is an account of a kidnapping from the inside. Gabo actually spoke to the people this happened to, and penned it nicely. This book is sad and reflects a reality which should only exist in nightmares.
Worth it.
By dmpulp
Format:Hardcover
"News of a Kidnapping" reveals García Márquez first passion: journalism. Though it's a novel, it's inspired on a series of real events that happened on Colombia several years ago. There's no evident criticism, but it reveals and illustrates the political situation of Colombia at that time (though it is still happening at the present). If you read this book, you're going to suffer both the hostages situations as their families' (as if you were either one).
But besides the dramatical situations, what is extremely interesting is the way the events are narrated. The odd chapters narrate the kidnapped people situations, their suffering. The even chapters narrate their families situations.
Though García Márquez always tend to jump back and forward into time in the same page, here the plot is more lineal and, as i said before, more journalistic.
Evidently, the kidnapping is one of the most awful crimes a human-being and his family can suffer, and by reading this, you will find out why.
But besides the dramatical situations, what is extremely interesting is the way the events are narrated. The odd chapters narrate the kidnapped people situations, their suffering. The even chapters narrate their families situations.
Though García Márquez always tend to jump back and forward into time in the same page, here the plot is more lineal and, as i said before, more journalistic.
Evidently, the kidnapping is one of the most awful crimes a human-being and his family can suffer, and by reading this, you will find out why.
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4.3 out of 5 stars
Most recent customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Gripping -- I couldn't put it down
What an amazing story! And to have it told by Garcia Marquez.
This is the true story of a series of kidnappings that took place in Colombia a decade ago. Read more
Published on Sep 24 2002 by Lisa Pozzi
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Noble laureate returns to his journalistic roots
"News of a Kidnapping" is a stunning account of a tragic chapter in Colombian history. Gabriel García Márquez's powers of mind, imagination and literature... Read more
Published on Jun 15 2002 by Bert Ruiz
5.0 out of 5 stars
News of a Kidnapping
I have read the original book in Spanish and I have to say it is great. The detail in which Garcia Marquez describes the events is impressive. Read more
Published on Jun 10 2002 by Petr Mikyska
3.0 out of 5 stars
History of a Kidnapping
This book was very dull. I was hoping for an account of the true-life kidnappings of several Colombian journalists in 1990 by a terrorist drug cartel. Read more
Published on May 23 2001 by Jay
4.0 out of 5 stars
Pablo Escobar kidnaps and kills people.
A great book about the narco terrorism in Columbia. Pablo Escobar kidnaps 9 prominent people and holds them until he gets the government to change the extratadition policy. Read more
Published on April 20 2001 by Kevin M Quigg
4.0 out of 5 stars
Not for the fainthearted..
Let me say this first: this is not a book for the fainthearted! If you have someone you care about in Colombia, you will drive that person (and yourself) crazy if you read this... Read more
Published on April 17 2001 by Hilde Bygdevoll
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good journalism from a great fiction writer
Gabriel Garcia Marquez's "News of a Kidnapping" is a non-fiction work of journalism. This is unusual in that Señor Gabo, as he is known by his Colombia countrymen, usually... Read more
Published on Sep 29 2000 by Walker E. Rowe III
5.0 out of 5 stars
Insightful Reading
If one were not familiar with the kidnappings that have occurred in Columbia, one might just believe this was a brilliant piece of fiction. Read more
Published on Aug 30 2000 by Enrique Torres
5.0 out of 5 stars
To live under the guerillas sword.
I read News of a kidnapping(Noticias de un Secuestro) of colombian writer, Gabriel García Márquez in spanish, and for me it was one of those book that I found myself... Read more
Published on July 23 2000 by Adriana Villanueva
5.0 out of 5 stars
?
How can anyone think that one of the greatest authors of the twentieth century, who also happened to be a journalist, could write anything that was shallow is beyond me. Read more
Published on July 23 2000 by Justin Martin
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