Gabriel García Márquez’s hometown awaits his latest book and more visitors
Statues and murals bear his likeness. Schools and libraries are named after him. Hotels, barbershops, nightclubs and bicycle repair shops bear references to his work.
In the vibrant Colombian mountain town of Aracataca, it’s impossible to walk down one street without seeing allusions to its most famous former resident: the 1982 Nobel Prize in Literature winner Gabriel García Márquez.
Yellow butterflies can be seen everywhere in the city, a nod to one of his famous literary images. The house where he lived as a child has been transformed into a museum full of original furnishings, including the crib in which he slept.
The library, called Biblioteca Pública Municipal Remedios La Bellaafter the character Remedios the Beauty from his novel ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’, shows a display cabinet with his books that have been translated into various languages.
Aracataca, a once dusty and dilapidated city of 40,000 inhabitants, plagued by unemployment and a lack of basic services, has been transformed by its connection with Mr. García Márquez, Colombia’s most famous author and one of the world’s literary titans.
Ten years ago, the town had little to offer tourists and did little to promote its connection with the author, aside from a museum and a billiards hall that called itself Macondo Billiard, after the name of the fictional town in “One Hundred Years of Solitude.” ”
But since García Márquez’s death in 2014, interest in him and his hometown, which inspired some of his best-known works, has surged.
Many call the writer Gabo, and the city has become a kind of Gabolandia.
If you walk a block further, there are visible reminders of the author: signs with his name, murals, statues, street signs and many stalls selling all kinds of items, from baseball caps to coffee mugs, bearing the likeness of Mr. García Márquez.
With the release of his latest posthumous book, Until August, Aracataca officials and residents are hopeful that the surrounding publicity will attract even more tourists.
“We have seen changes in all aspects,” said Carlos Ruiz, director of a museum where Mr. García Márquez’s father worked as a telegraph operator. He works with the regional government to stimulate literary tourism in the city.
“What we want is for Aracataca to be strengthened through Gabo,” Mr Ruiz said, adding that 22,000 tourists came last year, up from 17,500 in 2019.
The city celebrates Mr. García Márquez’s birthday every year on March 6, but this year the festivities were bigger, with more participants and more activities.
The celebration included a short story and poetry competition with a dance performance by girls dressed as yellow butterflies. A librarian dressed as Mr. García Márquez to read parts of “One Hundred Years of Solitude” to children. In the evening a theater group performed a performance of ‘Love in times of cholera’.
Mr. García Márquez did not want his last book to be published, and the work’s literary merits are already under debate. But in his hometown the work created intense excitement.
“There are great expectations, especially because this work has a woman in the lead role,” said Claudia Aarón, 50, a teacher.
“How nice,” she added, “that our wonderful teacher continues to let us enjoy his work even after his death.”
Ms. Aarón, who like many others at the poetry competition was dressed in bright yellow, recalled the last time the writer came to Aracataca in 2007, when he rode through the town in a horse-drawn carriage.
“That was amazing,” she said. “He and his wife wave like the queen of the town.”
“There are so many things that help and motivate us to continue living here and fighting for this culture,” said Rocío Valle, 52, another teacher who attended the poetry competition. “Thanks to God and thanks to Gabo.”
Mr. García Márquez was born in Aracataca in 1927 and was raised largely by his maternal grandparents before moving to Sucre at the age of 8 to live with his parents.
Although his time in Aracataca was relatively short, the city became the model for the fictional city of Macondo. (There was a 2006 referendum to change the name Aracataca to Macondo, which ultimately failed.)
He tells in his memoir ‘Living to Tell the Tale’ novelist remembered that When he returned to Aracataca as a young man, “the reflection of the heat was so intense that it was as if you were viewing everything through wavy glass.”
Today in Aracataca, Mr. García Márquez’s work is taught as early as kindergarten, with children being asked to make drawings based on his short stories that are then read aloud, Ms. Aarón said.
A group of teenagers gathered outside a store on Wednesday, saying the legacy of García Márquez’s Nobel Prize had inspired them to be creative and imaginative in the classroom. They discussed which work of his was their favorite: ‘The incredible and sad story of the innocent Eréndira and her heartless grandmother’ or ‘The story of a castaway’.
Alejandra Mantilla, 16, said she was proud that tourists from as far away as Europe and China were visiting the city, especially as Colombia continues to struggle to overcome its reputation for drugs and violence.
“Colombia is perhaps one of the countries that is very isolated because of drug trafficking and all that,” she said. “So it is good that he gives a good image to the country.”
Iñaki Otaoño, 63, and his wife, who live in Spain, made Aracataca one of their stops on their month-long trip to Colombia. Mr. Otaoño said he had read all of Mr. García Márquez’s works.
“We’re a bit monomaniacal about this gentleman,” he said. “We had to know the place where the book takes place.”
He said they planned to buy his new book when they arrived in Bogotá.
“It’s better to buy it here in his country, right?” he said.
The regional government has been working to revive a railway line running through Aracataca, currently used only for the transport of coal, to transport passengers as part of a ‘Macondo route’. A large hotel with a swimming pool and a bakery is also being built.
Increased tourism has provided more financial opportunities.
When Jahir Beltrán, 39, lost his job as a miner, he worked briefly in construction and agriculture before a friend suggested he work as a tour guide.
He began to study Mr. García Márquez’s writing and hired a tailor to make him a uniform so he could dress up as Colonel Aurelio Buendía, a protagonist in “One Hundred Years of Solitude.”
“All this knowledge, both from the writer and from ancient Aracataca, helped me convey it to tourists,” says Mr. Beltrán, who now works full-time as an independent tour guide.
Fernando Vizcaíno, 70, a retired banker, got the idea to turn his house into a hostel about six years ago when he saw visitors arriving in greater numbers. He called it the Magical Realism Tourist House, and he and his wife decorated it in brilliant colors, chock-full of tributes to Mr. García Márquez.
Mr. Vizcaíno said his father was a friend of the author’s family and carried letters back and forth between Mr. García Márquez’s parents when they were young and pursuing a forbidden love, a courtship called “Love in the Time of Cholera.” inspired.
“Here in Aracataca he is still alive,” he said.