The Early Years
by Ilan Stavans
Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Jan 2010
256 pages
Genre: Biography/Memoir
Publication Information
"Erudite...this survey of García Márquez’s literary heritage might prompt enthusiasts to further reading." - Publishers Weekly
"Longtime students of Garcia Marquez will find fresh insights, and Stavans provides an excellent introduction for those readers new to the master's work." - Kirkus Reviews
"Historians will appreciate details of politics and key events in Latin American history skillfully interwoven with biographical details. Saga lovers and biography fans should be equally satisfied." - Library Journal
"An engaging, informative study tracking the small beginnings of a literary giant and his magnum opus...Stavans enlightens us, not just about one literary figure, but about the culture and history of a whole hemisphere... Stavans is a magical writer himself." - Julia Alvarez, author of How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents and Once Upon A Quinceañera: Coming of Age in the USA
"Ilan Stavans offers a vivid and humane account of Gabriel García Márquez and his world in the first four decades of his life, from the banana trains of his native Aracataca and the Caribbean...to his experience as a journalist in Europe, his belief in Hemingway’s power as a writer, and the surprise of One Hundred Years of Solitude and of his sudden emergence as a world-famous writer who would win the Nobel Prize." – Werner Sollors, author, and Professor of English Literature and Professor of African and African American Studies, Harvard University
This information about Gabriel Garcia Marquez was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Ilan Stavans is the Lewis-Sebring Professor in Latin American and Latino Culture and Five College Fortieth Anniversary Professor at Amherst College. His books include The Hispanic Condition, On Borrowed Words, Spanglish, Dictionary Days, The Disappearance, and A Critic's Journey. He has edited the three-volume set Isaac Bashevis Singer: Collected Stories, The Poetry of Pablo Neruda, and, most recently, the anthology Becoming Americans: Four Centuries of Immigrant Writing. He is the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, Chile's Presidential Medal, and the Jewish Book Award. Stavans's work, translated into a dozen languages, has been adapted to the stage and screen, including the movie My Mexican Shivah. He also hosted the syndicated PBS television show Conversations with Ilan Stavans.
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