Sometimes the stories you find lead to other stories, and today every wall I run into has Gabriel Garcia Marquez written all over it. Sometimes you have to just run with it.

Word on the street is, Gabo used to be �ber-best friends with Peruvian existential novelist Mario Vargas Llosa. Then all of a sudden, they show up at a movie premiere in Mexico City in 1976 and Gabo's like "What's crackin,' Mario?" and Vargas Llosa's all "YOUR FACE, ES�" and plants his right fist squarely in Garcia Marquez's left eye and floors him, and then they don't so much as speak to each other again for more than thirty years. The whole thing was very mind-boggling to all, because writers are usually such amiable easy-going guys.

As if the public wasn't confounded enough, neither of the writers nor their wives would give up any reason whatsoever for the fight or the subsequent social freeze. This naturally led to wild rumors as to the circumstances of the broken friendship, ranging from professional jealousy to fierce political feuds to Gabo getting busy with Mario's wife.

(You must admit, when a guy yells "How dare you come and greet me after what you did to Patricia in Barcelona!" and then clocks you, it does tend to make you look pretty suspicious.)

Now all of a sudden, all these years and years later, photographer Rodrigo Moya has just published never-before-seen snapshots of his friend sporting his champion shiner, along with an essay describing what he remembers.

Moya, a close friend of Garc�a Marquez, took the black-and-white pictures in 1976 but has kept them secret until this week. He decided to publish them to coincide with Garc�a Marquez's 80th birthday and has broken his silence in a tongue-in-cheek account of the night in which Garcia Marquez and Vargas Llosa brawled, entitled "The Horrific Story of the Black Eye".

The photographs, which first appeared in La Jornada in Mexico show a shiner under Garcia M�rquez's left eye and a cut on his nose. In one, the Colombian novelist is looking deadly serious. In the other, he grins broadly from under his moustache, as if acknowledging that the picture would one day become a classic.

To make tabloid matters worse, some are insisting that Moya is alluding to some dark and heavy shit going on between the two authors, so of course speculation about the story is being cracked wide open all over again (way to go staying low-key, Gabo!) and historians are going crazy with theories. At the least (to the writers' relief, no doubt) Moya hasn't resorted to explicitness.

Despite Mr Moya's tantalising new details, only the two men and their wives know what really led to the fight. It is rumoured that while both families were living in Barcelona, Vargas Llosa left his wife and children for a stunning Swedish woman. According to the whispered tale, Patricia sought comfort with Garc�a M�rquez and his wife, who advised her to seek a divorce. When Vargas Llosa reconciled with Patricia, she allegedly told all, leading eventually to the sucker punch.

To some, however, Mr Moya's account suggests that some greater betrayal was behind Vargas Llosa's ire. If so, he isn't talking. "We'll leave that subject to future biographers," he said recently.

But the cool thing is that instead of getting all feisty again and giving everyone the kind of gossip scholars salivate over, it looks like Garcia Marquez and Vargas Llosa are taking the respectable-gentlemen approach, finally starting to get over their differences and make up.

Now the two appear to have buried the hatchet, with Vargas Llosa writing a prologue to a 40th anniversary edition of Garc�a M�rquez's classic work, A Hundred Years of Solitude. The text is reportedly an extract from Vargas Llosa's laudatory book on Garc�a M�rquez, written before their fall-out. The Peruvian writer is said to have blocked the book's publication ever since.

So all's well that ends well then, even when your photographer friend decides it's time for a little extra publicity. Still, even though they're kind of pals again now, Mario is totally still not going to Gabo's lame tribute party in Cartagena this month. So there.

PointBlank

New York, NY

November 2004

MAR 23, 2007 06:14 AM

Team Llosa.

"How'd you like that for magical realism, biyatch?"

WADO

Brooklyn, NY

March 2006

MAR 23, 2007 06:19 AM

Marquez is fucking awesome! And what is this shit about writers being amiable, friendly folk. We're grumpy miserable fucks, so don't piss us off, otherwise you get bang zoom!

gilgamesh999

USA

August 2006

MAR 23, 2007 07:13 AM

WADO said:
Marquez is fucking awesome! And what is this shit about writers being amiable, friendly folk. We're grumpy miserable fucks, so don't piss us off, otherwise you get bang zoom!

Sarcasm, monsieur.

redmess

Vanuatu

August 2004

MAR 23, 2007 07:47 AM

this is fantastic! it's like tabloid sensationalism for people with a brain.
thanks for posting

Belsky

Astoria, NY

November 2006

MAR 23, 2007 08:31 AM

This article teases me. I want some fucking details.

bean

STAFF

Los Angeles, CA

MAR 23, 2007 09:49 AM

redmess said:
this is fantastic! it's like tabloid sensationalism for people with a brain.
thanks for posting

Haha. That's a great way to put it. An enjoyable read all around. Thanks, _DG_.

Greybeard

Los Angeles, CA

December 2006

MAR 23, 2007 12:53 PM

WADO said:
Marquez is fucking awesome! And what is this shit about writers being amiable, friendly folk. We're grumpy miserable fucks, so don't piss us off, otherwise you get bang zoom!

Yeah, like the time Gore Vidal beat the shit out of Norman Mailer.

unheimlich

Reno, NV

March 2005

MAR 23, 2007 01:47 PM

haha In honor of this, I think we as the SG community should start some rumors to get Michael Chabon and Jonathan Franzen to beat the shit out of each other. Ever since that Simpsons episode where they fight, I've been wondering about the real deal. My money's on Chabon.

motorfirebox

Pittsburgh, PA

March 2004

MAR 23, 2007 06:48 PM

wow. so wrestlers and rappers aren't the only ones who get into this kind of thing, after all!

KikiBH

Washington, DC

December 2004

MAR 23, 2007 08:08 PM

I'm intrigued! Nice job, DG.