Colombia Hearts Gabriel Garcia Marquez

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Given what the general idea of “celebrity” seems to indicate for the most part these days, it comes across as strange and almost foreign when an individual is celebrated in correlation to his or her talents and accomplishments. The average person probably wouldn’t be able to pick a Nobel laureate out of a line-up unless he’d been in Us Weekly for going postal or getting into Lindsay Lohan’s knickers. This familiar social contract has been in play for years now, much to the relief of reclusive Salinger types, but leave it to our friendly southern brothers in Colombia to muck things up by getting all paparazzi-happy over a visit from national hero/living treasure/literary god Gabriel Garcia Marquez this past Monday during a meeting for the Inter-American Press Association.

The publicity-shy Nobel literature laureate arrived just as the richest man in the world, Bill Gates, was leaving the meeting. But the author clearly wished he had the security detail afforded the Microsoft chairman to fend off overzealous admirers.

Garcia Marquez, whose Hundred Years of Solitude is considered by many as a Spanish-language classic, is a national icon in his native Colombia. People treated him like a museum piece as he dined with journalist friends in a big tent at the event. Dozens jostled with police officers standing guard to have their pictures taken with him and to have books autographed.

Seńor Garcia Marquez isn’t exactly known for exchanging words with just anyone, but you have to hand it to the fresh young reporter kids for giving it their all. If nothing else, it led to a brief dialogue that can only be described as absolutely precious, and that the reporter in question will likely carry in his heart forever.

Garcia Marquez, known endearingly as "Gabo," has in recent years shunned interviews assiduously — even with journalists he knows well.

One young radio reporter tried anyway Monday. "How about a few words for Cararcol radio," he said, thrusting a microphone in front of the 80-year-old writer.

"If I give an interview to you I have to give an interview to everyone," the writer responded.

Noting the reporter's crushed expression, Garcia Marquez then softened: "I love you, young man," he said.

Still, even in the midst of absolute adoration, there’s only so much that one octogenarian genius can take, and before long Garcia Marquez was like “let’s blow this taco stand.” Belying true rock star style, he slid into his posse’s SUV and booked it to Mexico (his ex-pat home for decades now) at warp speed.

He is now comfortably back in the lands of America del Norte, where writers write peaceably, Thalia and the cast of Rebelde! take center stage, and the social contract we all know and love lives on.

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