I'm Not Here to Give a Speech
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- £5.99
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- £5.99
Publisher Description
Penguin presents I'm Not Here to Give a Speech, the complete speeches of Nobel laureate and beloved novelist Gabriel García Márquez collected and published in English for the first time.
Gabriel García Márquez has charmed generations of readers with his distinctive and richly expressive style. His talent for language is seen here as never before, in the public speeches he gave throughout his extraordinary life. These speeches chart Márquez's growth as a writer and orator, from an early talk given as a teenager graduating high school to his acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize. They offer new insight into the workings of the author's mind, drawing a portrait of Marquez as a writer and as a man.
This is a rare gem from a writer who touched readers across the globe. I Am Not Here to Give a Speech is a must-buy for anyone who ever fell in love with Macondo or cherished a battered copy of Love in the Time of Cholera.
Praise for Gabriel García Márquez:
'The greatest novel in any language of the last fifty years' Salman Rushdie on One Hundred Years of Solitude
'Should be required reading for the entire human race' New York Times on One Hundred Years of Solitude
'A masterpiece' Evening Standard on Chronicle of a Death Foretold
'As a reading experience it is completely magical' Observer on Living to Tell the Tale
'It asks to be read more than twice, and the rewards are dazzling' Observer on The Autumn of the Patriarch
'Márquez writes in this lyrical, magical language that no-one else can do' Salman Rusdhie on Collected Stories
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Though the late Nobel laureate Garc a M rquez (1927 2014) professed discomfort with public speaking, as the title indicates, this collection demonstrates that he was still a powerful storyteller with the spoken as well as printed word. The talks are arranged chronologically, from a farewell address in praise of friendship he gave at age 17 in 1944 to his classmates at the National Secondary School for Boys in Zipaquir , Colombia, to a 2007 speech on writing One Hundred Years of Solitude to Real Academia Espa ola and the king and queen of Spain. In the latter, he marvels at the millions of readers the book has touched, not to boast but "to show that there are a number of human beings who have demonstrated with their habit of reading that their souls are open to be filled with messages in Spanish." Perhaps the most notable selection is his 1982 speech accepting the Nobel Prize, "The Solitude of Latin America," which counsels Europeans "with an enlightening spirit" to realize that expressing solidarity with Latin Americans' "dreams will not make us feel less alone" unless accompanied by concrete action. These talks, so eloquently rendered by Garc a M rquez's longtime translator Grossman, capture the novelist's passion, genius, and energetic way of telling a story with a clear moral.