Two Lonergies Dos soledades

Two Lonergies Dos soledades Gabo MIXAEL Marquez / Mara del Socorro Lizarraga Translator Kai Qian .

In 1967, One Hundred Years of Luch was published, and its status reached an all-time high. Both Marquez and Lizarraga were still relatively young novelists when they held a bizarre conversation on the streets of Limaa dialogue as strange as two young dragonflies exchanging questions about evolutionbecame the only conversation ever exchanged between these two literary giants.

In 1968, Marquez wrote to Lizarraga, refusing the publisher’s plans to compile this dialogue into a book. From that moment on, he had already begun to consciously and cautiously shape himself into a legend.

However, this dialogue was only published in small quantities. Subsequently, it became Marquez’s most leaked work due to its association with unauthorized copies, photoprints, and underground distribution.

Now, half a century later, we finally meet these “miracle survivors” from the past and return to an era of great excitement, revisiting both the explosive boom at its height and its ultimate fade.

This brief dialogue record consists mainly of Lizarraga’s questions followed by Marquez’s answers. It is quite unexpected because, in his novels, Marquez was often perceived as a reserved and silent writer. However, during this conversation, it becomes evident that he is an extremely talkative and passionate individual with sharp wit.

I wrote this text primarily out of curiosity about how Marquez could be so open about his writing process. I initially thought he was like many other novelists, preferring to remain reclusive. But in reading this dialogue, I discovered that he was actually very and filled with enthusiasm and .

I enjoy writing for its own sake because my written works were published, which led me to reflect on the things I had previously articulated countless times. I believe that idea is correct: I write so that my friends will like me. But later, when I began analyzing what it means to be a writer and examining other writers’ works, I suddenly found myself questioning the nature of literature itselfespecially novelsand whether they serve any purpose at all.

I wanted to explain these things because theoretical analysis is not really my forte. To put it another way, neither I nor anyone else knows for certain why literature exists in the first place. However, as far as I can tell, most literary works are concerned with destroying something or creating a new onewhether it’s an improvement to human life.

Explaining all of this is quite difficult because theoretical analysis doesn’t come easily to me. In other words, I still don’t fully understand why these things happen the way they do. What I can say for sure is that writing is a urgent desire. Only writers are driven by this compulsion and cannot avoid it; otherwise, problems like headaches and indigestion would arise.

If I were able to explain this clearly, it might become something completely logical and possessing absolute reason and consciousness. In any case, I no longer have an interest in such matters. The one thing that stopped me from getting over the initial shock is that Lizarraga mentioned a key point during his speech earlier today. He said that loneliness was a common trait among humans. However, now I believe it’s something peculiar to South American people.

If this is true, then we’re not talking about an abstract philosophical concept but rather something related to social and political aspects as well. So, from my perspective, which is broader than before, this topic doesn’t seem as daunting or esoteric as I once thought. Regardless of my own intentions, these past few years have been dedicated to writing about loneliness.

Marquez: Correct. He passed away recently, and he set up a village in his hometown. His advice to me was especially memorablethe most vivid thing I remember is what he told me at dinner one evening: “You don’t know how much a dead person weighs.” There’s also something else I can’t forgetI think it relates more to my status as an author than anything else. That night, we were in the circus, and we saw a single-humped camel. When we got home, he pulled out a dictionary and said: “This is a one-humped camel; this is an elephant; and the difference between a one-humped camel and a two-humped camel.” In that moment, he taught me how to use dictionaries.

Marquez: The story about the bananas is entirely true. In fact, in Latin America, there are strange incidents like the banana trunk businessjust as brutal as that oneand such sad things eventually become mere figments of imagination. In a certain region of Columbia along the Atlantic coast, people began arriving en masse. They spoke so many different languages that no one could communicate with anyone elsebut the economy started boomingsort of.

In this scenario, the economic situation was so bad that even the people were technically unable to survive. As long as they were alive, they would starve to death. This kind of prosperity is something I can’t imagine. People were working from their very basic needsthey barely managed to eat and sleep. The town’s streets were filled with banana workers who didn’t have any tools or foodjust a few dollars in their pockets. Whenever they saw a judge or a police officer, they would offer them a small amount of money as a bribe.

In those days, no one could imagine that such a thing would ever happenbut now it’s no longer news at all. Whenever people hear about these kinds of events, they wonder how they could have been prevented. Even in the very beginning, I was an idealist who thought that the best way to improve society was through education and raising awareness.

I can’t help but think that writing is something deeply ingrained in my blood. It’s a desire that I can’t shake offonly by writing can I escape from all these problems. Otherwise, I’ll end up having to deal with headaches or indigestion. In this particular conversation, however, things didn’t go as smoothly as they did before.

As for Lizarraga, he told me once about a time when the Brazilian government issued a decree canceling an epidemic…

Marquez: We’re back to that old topic again: we’re beginning to look for examples. As far as I know, there are thousands of such cases in existence.