Long before the legendary novelist Gabriel García Márquez died in 2014, he'd spent years working on a novella called Until August. A decade earlier, after finishing a fifth draft, he confided to his longtime assistant Mónica Alonso, "Sometimes books need to be left to rest." Enter Cristóbal Pera, who had a long professional association with García Márquez (affectionately known as Gabo), having edited the author's memoir, Living to Tell the Tale, and a collection of public speeches, I'm Not Here to Give a Speech. In 2010, Pera was summoned to help Gabo (who by this time suffered from dementia) with the unfinished novella still in need of an ending. The novella, published this week by Knopf, remained unfinished in García Márquez's lifetime, with the famed author telling his sons, Rodrigo and Gonzalo Garcia Barcha, "This book doesn't work. It must be destroyed." And yet now, almost ten years after their father's death, Until August arrives to the public, rekindling questions both ethical and aesthetic about posthumous publications. |
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