Solitude  Company, Silvana Paternostro
Solitude  Company, Silvana Paternostro
List: $24.99 | Sale: $17.50
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Solitude & Company

Author: Silvana Paternostro, Edith Grossman

Narrator: Robert Fass

Unabridged: 9 hr 2 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 02/05/2019


Synopsis

An oral history biography of the legendary Latin American writer and Nobel laureate Gabriel García Márquez, brimming with atmosphere and insight

Irreverent and hopeful, Solitude & Company recounts the life of a boy from the provinces who decided to become a writer. This is the story of how he did it, how little Gabito became Gabriel García Márquez, and of how Gabriel García Márquez survived his own self-creation.

The book is divided into two parts. In the first, BC, before Cien años de soledad (One Hundred Years of Solitude), we hear from his siblings and those who were friends before García Márquez became the universally loved Latin American icon. The second part, AC, describes the man behind the legend that García Márquez became. From Aracataca, to Baranquila, to Bogota, to Paris, to Mexico City, the solitude that García Márquez needed to produce his masterpiece turns out to have been something of a raucous party whenever he wasn't actually writing. Here are the writers Tomás Eloy Martínez, Edmundo Paz Soldán, and William and Rose Styron; legendary Spanish agent Carmen Balcells; the translator of A Hundred Years of Solitude, Gregory Rabassa; Gabo's brothers Luis Enrique, Jaime, Eligio, and Gustavo, and his sisters Aida and Margot; María Luisa Elío, to whom A Hundred Years of Solitude is dedicated; and many others.

About Silvana Paternostro

A journalist born in Colombia, Silvana Paternostro is the author of the books My Colombian War and In the Land of God and Man (finalist, PEN/Martha Albrand Prize). Her writing has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, the Atlantic, the Virginia Quarterly Review, the Paris Review, El Malpensante, and Etiqueta Negra, among other publications.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Aria on November 28, 2020

The most beautiful book I've read all year. Such a rich and interesting way to learn about Gabo's life from so many different perspectives, and to get more context into the stories that inspired One Hundred Years. Viva Gabo!......more

Goodreads review by André on January 30, 2025

Fico genuinamente triste em dar uma nota tão baixa a um livro com tanto potencial quanto "Solidão e Companhia". Recontando a trajetória de vida e carreira de Gabriel Garcia Márquez através dos olhos de seus parentes, agentes, fotógrafos, amigos de longa e curta data, e inspirações pra seus personagen......more

Goodreads review by Mark on September 13, 2021

I picked up this book in search of a similar presentation of a writer’s life to a book I’m working on, The Moritz Thomsen Reader to strengthen my proposal to attract a publisher. Moritz wrote Living Poor, and my book will be an anthology of the writers who knew him best. And “Gabo” is one of the gre......more

Goodreads review by KOMET on July 23, 2019

I read "SOLITUDE & COMPANY" as an 'inverted memoir' in which Silvana Paternostro very smartly compiled a biography of the Nobel laureate Gabriel García Márquez as told by the various personages she interviewed who knew García Márquez best, through various periods of his life, from childhood to death......more

Goodreads review by Trevor on August 26, 2023

I've never read "One Hundred Years of Solitude"; I've tried to get into it a couple of times, but I rarely get far before I just give up. I'm not sure why; it comes highly recommended from some literary-minded friends of mine, and of course it has the reputation as the ur-text of Latin American magi......more