Yo no vengo a decir un discurso (I Didn't Come to Give a Speech) » (Spanish-language Edition)

A chief practitioner of the "magic-realist" style, Gabriel García Márquez's influence and importance lie in his crucial role of bringing Latin-American fiction to wider audiences while pioneering it at the same time. The Colombian-born Nobel winner tells fantastical tales of romance and heroism against an historic Latin American backdrop, always infusing believability by giving his writing a journalistic cast.

“¿Qué hago yo encaramado en esta percha de honor, yo que siempre he considerado los discursos como el más terrorífico de los compromisos humanos?” —Gabriel García Márquez
 
Los textos que Gabriel García Márquez ha reunido en este libro fueron escritos por el autor con la intención de ser leídos por él mismo en público, ante una audiencia, y recorren prácticamente toda su vida, desde el primero, que escribe a los diecisiete años para despedir a sus compañeros del curso superior en Zipaquirá, hasta el que lee ante las Academias de la Lengua y los reyes de España al cumplir ochenta años.
            Estos discursos del premio Nobel nos ayudan a comprender más profundamente su vida y nos desvelan sus obsesiones fundamentales como escritor y ciudadano: su fervorosa vocación por la literatura, la pasión por el periodismo, su inquietud ante el desastre ecológico que se avecina, su propuesta de simplificar la gramática, los problemas de su tierra colombiana o el recuerdo emocionado de amigos escritores como Julio Cortázar o Álvaro Mutis, entre otros muchos.
            El lector tiene entra sus manos el complemento indispensable a una obra narrativa que nos seguirá hablando en un largo porvenir.

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“What am I doing here on this perch of honor, when I have always considered speeches the most terrifying of human obligations?”
 
The speeches that Gabriel García Márquez has gathered in this collection were written by the author with the intention of being read by him before an audience, and span the course of nearly his entire life; from the first, a farewell written at seventeen to his fellow students at Zipaquirá, to his appearance before the Spanish-language Academies and the kings of Spain on his eightieth birthday.
Combined, these speeches provide a more profound understanding of the life of this Nobel Prize winner, revealing his fundamental creative and civil obsessions: his intense aptitude for literature and writing; his passion for journalism; his concerns over looming environmental dangers; his proposal for the simplification of grammar; the problems facing his beloved Colombian homeland; and the loving memory of fellow writers like Julio Cortázar and Álvaro Mutis, among many others.
In Yo no vengo a decir un discurso (I did not come to give a speech), the reader holds in his/her hands the essential complement to a body of work that will continue speaking to us for a long time to come.