He Cervantes Institute of Paris received this Thursday the donation of 306 copies from the personal library of Gabriel García Márquez by the Colombian writer’s family, made up of books that the author kept in his apartment in the French capital.
The bequeathed books include works by Mario Vargas Llosa, Roberto Bolaño, Álvaro Mutis, Horacio Quiroga, Juan Rulfo o Stefan Zweigin addition to titles such as El Conde de Lucanor or a collection of Castellano Classics from Espasa Calpe that García Márquez requested from the literary agent Carmen Balcells, as well as translations into various languages of the Colombian novelist’s own novels.
So, The copies have become the property of the Cervantes Institute and will be kept in a collection in the Octavio Paz Library in downtown Paris..
During the signing ceremony, which took place this Thursday, the director of the Institute, Luis García Montero, and the son of the Colombian author, Gonzalo García Barcha, were present. In addition, the director of the Cervantes in Paris, José María Martínez, and Alfonso Prada, Colombian ambassador to France, attended.
Gonzalo García Barcha has explained how these books that his father kept in the apartment on Rue de Montalembert, in the seventh arrondissement of Paris, were left “up in the air” when they decided to sell the house.
“It seemed a shame to lose these books that lived in a slightly conspiratorial place, but above all of great joy.. There we learned that culture is not the big theaters, nor the big cinemas, nor the big ceremonies, but something that is experienced at home after dinner,” he remarked according to a statement.
For García Montero this is an important donation due to the “value” of García Márquez in Spanish, a name that “always appears when talking about the importance of Hispanic culture.
For his part, the director of the Cervantes has acknowledged that he is excited to participate in this event around a person for whom he felt “great admiration” for his literature and his work and, in addition, he had the opportunity to meet.
Finally, the Colombian ambassador to France, Alfonso Prada, has shown his gratitude to García Márquez’s family for the gesture, as well as to Cervantes of Paris for being “those responsible for taking care of” the legacy.
“In every text by García Márquez, Colombia is present and we Colombians are a little piece of Macondo, of each yellow butterfly“, he concluded.