When Gabriel García Márquez died, in 2014, he left behind, among other legacies, an astoundingly detailed record of his life—some 27,500 images’ worth of detail, in fact. That collection—culled from his correspondence, his twenty-two personal scrapbooks and notebooks, his photographs, and material from both his published and unpublished works—was acquired by the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin in 2014, and became digitally available to the public this month. The Ransom archive gives us the author in full and scattered manuscript: yellowed pages of Colombian passports; first and second and third drafts of his Nobel Prize speech, historical dates and ranges penciled in the margin; candid snapshots of him fondling a statue with Pablo Neruda in Normandy or side-hugging a mirthful Fidel Castro in Havana. The images, in their multitudes, compose not so much a story as an entire life, refracted through film and paper. A small selection appears below:
Unidentified photographer, Gabriel García Márquez with Emma Castro, 1957. Courtesy Harry Ransom Center.
Unidentified photographer, Gabriel García Márquez’s office, undated. Courtesy Harry Ransom Center.
A scrapbook containing interviews, stories, articles and excerpts by and about Gabriel García Márquez. Courtesy Harry Ransom Center.
Scrapbook containing interviews, stories, articles, and excerpts by and about Gabriel García Márquez. Courtesy Harry Ransom Center.
Unidentified photographer, Gabriel García Márquez with Fidel Castro, undated. Courtesy Harry Ransom Center.
Unidentified photographer, Gabriel García Márquez in Aracataca, March 1966. Courtesy Harry Ransom Center.
Unidentified photographer, Gabriel García Márquez kissing his wife, Mercedes Barcha, during a visit to Sweden for the Nobel Prize ceremony, 1982. Courtesy Harry Ransom Center.
Gabriel García Márquez’s revised typescript of Chronicle of a Death Foretold, 1980. Courtesy Harry Ransom Center.
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