Gabriel García Márquez in Retrospect

[T]he best homage to a great author is to imagine ways to read his work anew. Gene Bell-Villada’s timely selection of essays does exactly that: it sheds new light on a multifaceted writer that still manages to stimulate the critical imagination of readers from around the world. . . . Among its many virtues, this book reminds us that García Márquez embodied a unique pleasure in the act of writing. Most of the collection’s papers share this “joie d’ecrire,” as they combine rigor, poetry, and a dose of playful wit that suits the analysis of a lyrical mamagallista like Gabo. Among them, Bell-Villada’s own good-humored introduction is unparalleled. This tone allows many of the texts to both celebrate the writer and deal with him in an intellectually nuanced way that, instead of solidifying the icy statue of the canonic author, brings a renewed warmth to his work and makes him, once again, our contemporary. * Hispanofila *
Gene Bell-Villada's new collection of essays provides much for general readers, students and specialists alike, who are offered an array of critical approaches with which to spar, ranging from the contextual, biographical, literary and literary-historical to the ecocritical, demythifying and on occasion densely theoretical. Particularly welcome is the volume's emphasis on García Márquez's later writing. -- Clive Griffin, Emeritus Fellow, Trinity College, University of Oxford
This exemplary collection of essays is illuminating, ample, accessible, and ultimately essential for understanding how García Márquez is read today. -- Randolph D. Pope, University of Virginia