Daily Headlines: September 7, 2015 (Updated)

* Mexico: Families of 43 Ayotzinapa college students missing for nearly a year have called on meeting with Mexico’s president after an independent probe contradicted the official investigation.

Update: President Enrique Peña Nieto said on Monday that he would be willing to meet again with families of the missing students and claimed that the government's investigation into the disappearances remains open.

* U.S.: While some politicians on the campaign trail deride immigrants, a recent study found that “immigrant adolescents are actually less likely than native-born peers in the United States to commit crimes, use drugs or behave violently.”

* Latin America: Representatives from seventeen nations celebrated the tenth anniversary of the Petrocaribe oil alliance that has been shaken by the low price of crude and Venezuela’s economic problems.

* Colombia: FBI agents reportedly placed the late Nobel laureate Gabriel García Márquez under surveillance including monitoring his ties to then-Cuban president Fidel Castro.

YouTube Source – euronews
 
Online Sources including Update – El Universal, The Latin Americanist, Latina, The Washington Post, Xinhua, Excelsiór (in Spanish)

Nuestro Cine – Gabo

“Nuestro Cine” is our occasional feature where we focus on the world of film in the Americas. 
In his career spanning some six decades, recently deceased Latin American journalist and novelist Gabriel García Márquez sold tens of millions of books and received near universal acclaim worldwide.  His great literary skill was acknowledged in the numerous tributes to Gabo including a ceremony on Monday at Mexico City’s Fine Arts Palace and a symbolic funeral in the late author’s birthplace of Aracataca, Colombia.

Not as well known, however, are the movies based on his texts that graced the silver screen.  (One could argue that his most famed adaptation to have been filmed where the scenes in the R.E.M. music video for “Losing My Religion” that where based on one of his short stories).
 
Directed by Francesco Rosi of Italy the 1987 movie adaptation of Chronicle of a Death Foretold was filmed in the Colombian state of Bolivar.  The movie contained numerous European-based actors who were relatively unknown across the Atlantic though British-born Rupert Everett would gain fame for his roles in My Best Friend’s Wedding and in two of the Shrek films.

As one can view below the page break, the first part of the movie shares some of the non-linear structure of the book that is the fictional reconstruction of the real murder of Santiago Nasar.  However the film does differ in that omits many of the dozens of characters included in the novel and also changes the narrator from an anonymous actor to the character of Cristo Bedoya, the closest friend of Nasar. 

Famed Author Gabriel García Márquez Dies (Updated)

One of Latin America's most famous authors, Gabriel García Márquez, has passed away on Thursday afternoon at the age of 87.

Fernanda Familiar, a spokeswoman for the García Márquez family, tweeted that the Colombian-born Nobel laureate died at his residence in Mexico City:

Muere Gabriel García Márquez. Mercedes y sus hijos, Rodrigo y Gonzalo, me autorizan dar la información. Que tristeza tan profunda...
— Fernanda Familiar (@qtf) April 17, 2014

She wrote "Gabriel García Márquez died.  Mercedes and her sons, Rodrigo and Gonzalo have authorized me to provide the information.  What a profound sadness..."

A statement from the García Márquez family issued on Wednesday mentioned that he was in "very fragile" health following a nine-day hospitalization to treat lung and urinary tract infections.

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos alluded to García Márquez' best-known novel, One Hundred Years of Solitude, via his Twitter account.

"One thousand years of solitude and sadness over the death of the greatest Colombian of all time," he tweeted.  Santos claimed earlier this week that García Márquez had pneumonia and was in "delicate health which is a reality of his age."
  
Other message of condolences were issued by international leaders including U.S. President Barack Obama and President Enrique Peña Nieto of Mexico as well as artists from the Americas.

"He gave me the motivation and freedom to launch myself into writing because in his books I found my own family, my country, characters familiar to me, the color and rhythm and abundance of my continent," said Chilean novelist Isabel Allende.  

"A great writer has died.  His works helped spread and provide prestige to Latin American literature...I send my condolences to his family," said came from fellow Nobel laureate and literary great Mario Vargas Llosa.  The Peruvian author along with the likes of García Márquez, Julio Cortázar of Argentina and Mexico's Carlos Fuentes spearheaded a Latin American Boom in literature during the 1960s and 70s.
  
The hashtag #GraciasGabo has become a trending topic on Twitter as people worldwide have taken to social networks to express their appreciation of the renown author and novelist. 

(Update: Our biography of García Márquez can be read below the page break).   

Daily Headlines: April 7, 2014

* Costa Rica: Historian and outside candidate Luis Guillermo Solís validated his first round victory in February by easily becoming Costa Rican president-elect after winning in a virtual one-man runoff yesterday.

* Cuba: The recent revelation that U.S. government helped create a “Cuban Twitter” network could hinder the efforts of opposition activists and independent bloggers on the island.

* Argentina: Umma Azul became the first child of a lesbian couple to be baptized by the Catholic Church in Argentina in a ceremony held in the Cathedral of Cordoba.

* Mexico: Renown author Gabriel García Marquez could leave a Mexico city hospital tomorrow and over a week since the Nobel laureate was treated by doctors for a lung and urinary infection.

Video Source– teleSUR via YouTube (Nearly 1.3 million voters opted for Costa Rican president-elect Luis Guillermo Solís in Sunday’s runoff election despite a high abstention rate).

Online Sources – The Guardian; Reuters; Prensa Latina; The Latin Americanist; Tico Times
 

Daily Headlines: March 7, 2014

* South Africa: Brazil may have romped South Africa 5-0 in an international soccer friendly on Wednesday but the big winner was a five-year-old boy who entered the field and received a warm reception from the verdeamarela players.

* U.S.: Florida’s Supreme Court ruled against granting undocumented immigrants licenses to practice law in a case whose plaintiff entered the U.S. from Mexico at the age of nine, and later graduated from law school and passed the state bar exam.

* Colombia: Famous Colombian author Gabriel Garcia Marquez celebrated his 87th birthday by greeting journalists and well-wishers outside of his Mexico City residence.

* Nicaragua: Senior Nicaraguan government officials denied rumors that Russia would build a military base in the Central American country.

Video Source – YouTube user Neymar Junior
 
Online Sources - Huffington Post; Russia & India Report; seattlepi.com; Fox News Latino

Daily Headlines: March 7, 2013

* Colombia: Nobel literature laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez claimed that he was “very happy” to be celebrating his 86th birthday on Wednesday.

* Haiti: Ex-President Rene Preval is being questioned behind closed doors by a judge investigating the 2000 murder of journalist Jean Dominique. 

* Mexico: Mexican telecom tycoon Carlos Slim topped Forbes magazine’s list of more than 1400 billionaires that excluded drug capo Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán.

* Brazil: A news study concluded that “disarmament campaigns launched in 2004” have helped stabilize the number of gun deaths over the past decade.

Video Source – YouTube via user Evandro Motta (Excerpt from a documentary on famous Colombian author Gabriel Garcia Marquez.)
 
Online Sources- GlobalPost, Miami Herald, Reuters, The Guardian

Daily Headlines: July 10, 2012

* Colombia: The director of the Gabriel García Márquez New Journalism Foundation rejected rumors alleging that the Nobel laureate is suffering from senile dementia.

* Latin America: Will India become the next emerging world power behind China seeking to “forge a productive partnership” with Latin America?

* Venezuela: At a press conference yesterday President Hugo Chavez claimed that he was “free, free, totally free” of a cancerous tumor that was originally diagnosed about a year ago.

* Mexico: A $1 million reward has been issued to track down five suspects in the December 2010 death of a Border Patrol agent near the boundary of the U.S. and Mexico.

Video Source – YouTube via EFE (Jaime García Márquez said last week that his brother, acclaimed Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez, is in the “throes” of senile dementia.)

Online Sources- Fox News Latino, New York Daily News, Reuters, USA TODAY

Daily Headlines: March 7, 2012

* Latin America: The 85th birthday of famed Colombian writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez was celebrated yesterday throughout the Americas including the launching of “100 Years of Solitude” as an e-book.

* Brazil: Environmental group Greenpeace warned that “deficiencies” in a Brazilian nuclear power plant currently undergoing construction could cause “a new Fukushima” to occur.

* Cuba: Researchers in Cuba will soon start clinical trials of an HIV vaccine on a group of thirty patents.

* Colombia: A criminal complaint was filed in a Swiss court against Nestle alleging that the food giant “failed to take preventative measures” in the 2005 murder of a Colombian employee.

Image Source – Flickr via J’Roo (Plaque honoring Gabriel Garcia Marquez in Paris, France). (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Online Sources- LAHT, CNN, Sky News, swissinfo.ch

Weekend Headlines: September 26-27, 2009

* Colombia: A survey conducted of international writers named Gabriel Garcia Marquez' “One Hundred Years of Solitude” as the most influential piece of world literature of the past quarter-century.

* Peru: On a related note, Peru’s Mario Vargas Llosa won the Caballero Bonald Prize for his book on Uruguayan author Juan Carlos Onetti.

* Honduras: The country’s political stalemate shows no signs of weakening as de facto President Roberto Micheletti claimed that "it's impossible to negotiate" with deposed President Manuel Zelaya while Zelaya accused Micheletti of poisoning him with toxic gas.

* El Salvador: Legislators defeated a bill that would’ve banned same-sex marriages and barred gay couples from adoption.

* Mexico: Police arrested five people accused of a series of murders in Ciudad Juarez including two incidents at drug rehab clinics.

* Argentina: At least twelve people were injured after police fought with workers protesting against layoffs at a Kraft Foods plant.

Online Sources- Guardian UK, Voice of America, IPS, Buenos Aires Herald, Wall Street Journal, MSNBC
Image- The Telegraph

Follow-up: Garcia Marquez denies retirement claims

To paraphrase Mark Twain: “reports of my retirement have been greatly exaggerated.”

As we mentioned last week, the agent of Gabriel Garcia Marquez said that he will retire from writing. "I don't think that García Márquez will write anything else", mentioned Carmen Balcells to Chilean newspaper La Tercera on the possible future of the famed author.

“Gabo” subsequently denied the rumors that he was putting down his pen forever. According to a very brief interview published in Colombia’s El Tiempo:

El Tiempo: Maestro, could you answer some questions for El Tiempo?"

Gabriel Garcia Marquez: Call me later; I'm writing,

We called him later at his Mexico City studio and he accepted answering only two questions.

Is it true that you will no longer write?

“Not only is it untrue but the truth is that I do nothing else but write.

But it has been said that you will not publish any more books?

My job is to write, not to publish. I'll know when the pastries that I have in the oven are ready to be eaten. – [ed. personal translation]

In retrospect, as the Guardian UK noted, Balcells’ comments are “somewhat galling for her, given that she also revealed García Márquez represented 36.2% of her agency's income.”

Image- Reuters
Online Sources- El Tiempo, The Latin Americanist, LAHT, Guardian UK, brainyquote.com

Gabriel Garcia Marquez calls it quits?

Rumors had been swirling in recent months that Gabriel Garcia Marquez would be writing a new novel. Yet those notions have apparently been put to rest by his agent who claimed that the famed Colombian writer will put down his pen for good:

His agent, Carmen Balcells, told the Chilean newspaper La Tercera : "I don't think that García Márquez will write anything else."

Despite longstanding rumours he would never write again, hopes were raised last year when the Colombian writer Plinio Apuleyo Mendoza, a friend, said Marquez was in fact working on a new novel.

But Balcell's comments seem to put paid to that, and were supported by García Márquez's biographer, Gerald Martin, who told La Tercera he too doubts anything new will be published in his lifetime.

"I also believe that Gabo won't write any more books, but I don't think this is too regrettable, because as a writer it was his destiny to have the immense satisfaction of having a totally coherent literary career many years before the end of his natural life," said Martin.

“Gabo” hasn’t written anything since the 2004 publication of his most recent novel- “Memoirs of My Melancholy Whores”. Reviews of that book were mixed though the harshest critique came from the Iranian government which banned the text.

Not all is dour news in the world of “Gabo”; Salma Hayek is rumored to play the lead role in the upcoming film adaptation of "News of a Kidnapping".

Image- The Telegraph
Online Sources- Guardian UK, metacritic.com, Xinhua, The Latin Americanist

Daily Headlines: November 23, 2007

* First it was Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Now it’s fellow Colombian Shakira who has caught the overly critical eye of Iran’s government.

* The U.S. will create a special program for Cubans trying to obtain visas to enter the U.S.

* Brazilian health programs may help “reverse” the AIDS epidemic there, according to government health officials.

* Follow-up: Remember Sayda Umanzor- the breastfeeding mother who was separated for three days from her child by U.S. immigration authorities? She was deported back to her native Honduras on Wednesday.

Sources- Sydney Morning Herald, The Latin Americanist, MiamiHerald.com, Reuters, New York Times

Image- MTV

Iran bans Garcia Marquez’ latest book

The Iranian government banned publication of Colombian author Gabriel Garcia Marquez’ latest novel despite having originally approved it. The first edition of “Memories of My Melancholy Whores” sold out in Iran last month, yet a backlash by Islamist conservatives led to the government’s about-face.

How did the book get published in Iran in the first place? Through a clever trick:

In their determination to get Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s highly acclaimed work into the bookshops, local publishers hit on an audacious ruse - they sanitized its title.

As a result, the normally vigilant gaze of culture and Islamic guidance ministry officials was averted when a novel by the Nobel prize-winning author innocuously titled Memories of My Melancholy Sweethearts was submitted and accordingly authorized for publication.

Image- The Daily Star

Sources (English)- CBC, AFP, Guardian UK

Sources (Spanish)- El Tiempo

Posts return on Tuesday

Apologies to all of you for the lack of posts today.

Please be assured that regularly scheduled posting will resume on Tuesday.

In the meantime, here is the trailer to the upcoming film adaptation of Gabriel García Márquez' book "Love in the Time of Cholera".

The movie stars Javier Bardem, Benjamin Bratt, and Catalina Sandino Moreno. It will be released in Colombia and limited in the U.S. on the 16 of this month.

(Video link):

(Hat tip: VivirLatino).

$18 million from Chavez for Danny Glover films

Venezuela’s government approved a plan to pay nearly $18 million for two films to be directed by Danny Glover. One of the movies will be based on the leader of Haiti’s colonial uprising- Toussaint L'Overture, while the other will be on Gabriel Garcia Marquez’ novel The General in His Labyrinth.

In remarks made to the Guardian UK, Glover (image) expressed cautious optimism over the eventual financing of the movies:

“One of the major axioms in theatre is never talk about anything until the deal is signed. There's a lot of deliberation that goes on before something actually happens.”

Sources- International Herald Tribune, Guardian UK, Wikipedia

Image- BBC News

Bravo Gabo! Garcia Marquez praised during Spanish language conference

Renowned author Gabriel Garcia Marquez (a.k.a. Gabo) was lavished with praise from peers and admirers alike during the opening acts of the Fourth Congress of the Spanish Language held in the Colombian city of Medellin. “I can't overcome my surprise for everything that has happened" said Gabo during a ceremony celebrating his extraordinary literary career. Spain’s King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia as well as former U.S. president Bill Clinton were present at the tribute to Gabo who recently celebrated his eightieth birthday.

Also during the Fourth Congress of the Spanish Language, language experts revealed a new Spanish proficiency exam designed “to unify criteria and evaluation methods for learning and knowledge of the Spanish language”. The test is planned to be universally accepted though the director of the Cervantes Institute observed that architects of the exam were “very careful about respecting the particular (linguistic) characteristics of each country.” Though there are basic commonalities in Spanish throughout the Americas, there are some notable differences as you can read in our "Regional Spanish" page.

Links- Prensa Latina, Journal Peru, El Tiempo, The Latin Americanist, FortWayne.com, The Latin Americanist: Regional Spanish

Image- El Tiempo