‘Chronicle Of A Death Foretold’ On ‘Until August’!
Only a few people are seen waiting eagerly for the publication of a new book in the contemporary world! Authors of books of these sorts have either died or stopped writing or started receiving threats! Perhaps, the 21st Century world has gone way beyond the characters created by them! Image of an author has also become an important issue. New books penned by Milan Kundera (April 1, 1929 – July 11, 2023) or Haruki Murakami (b. January 12, 1949) hit the market almost silently. However, Gabriel José de la Concordia García Márquez (March 6, 1927 – April 17, 2014) and Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie are exceptions! Márquez’s newly-published book has triggered a sensation among book-lovers (in 2024).
A decade after the demise of the Colombian novelist, short-story writer, screenwriter and journalist, Penguin published his fiction ‘Until August: The Lost Novel‘ (translated by Anne McLean)! Fans of Márquez (affectionately known as Gabo or Gabito throughout Latin America) have the information that the manuscript of this publication was found in the late 1990s. The author himself had read out a certain portion of the manuscript on more than one occasion, while paper and magazines from different countries published parts of it. In fact, Márquez had made five manuscripts of this book and kept them (along with the manuscript of his novella Memories of My Melancholy Whores) in a folder. Although Memories of My Melancholy Whores was published in Spanish in 2004, with an English translation by Edith Grossman published in October 2005; Until August remained unpublished!
Reports suggest that Márquez was not at all satisfied with Until August even after making five manuscripts of the novel! He told his near and dear ones: “This book does not work. It must be destroyed.” By that time, the Nobel laureate author had developed senile dementia. Hence, the book was not published in his lifetime. It hit the market in 2024 mainly because of the interest of Márquez’s two sons and at the initiative of the translator, editor and publisher. Although Márquez’s children have mentioned at the beginning of this book that publishing Until August is an act of betrayal, they have claimed that the pleasure of readers is utmost important for them… more than the author’s own wishes! They feel that their father shall forgive them, if readers appreciate the book.
A little over a hundred pages contain the original story that is all about a profound meditation on freedom, regret and the mysteries of love. In Until August, Márquez made an attempt to explore sex, betrayal and damaging secrets of a woman’s one-night stands with strangers. The main character of this novel is 46-year-old Ana Magdalena Bach, a lady who surveys the men of the hotel bar. She is happily married and has no reason to escape the world she has made with her husband and children. However, Ana visits a bar on an island every August mainly to take a new lover for a single night! Although she enjoys taking showers together with her orchestra conductor husband and also enjoys an exciting physical relationship with him, Ana still lives with anxiety as her young daughter has decided to join a convent as a nun. Despite all these, she visits the island every year in search of forbidden pleasure!
The author takes his readers along in the mystery-thriller of Ana’s immediate discovery… who will she find in the hotel bar this time? Ana felt it like an accident or nightmare in the first year as she discovered USD 20 on the table after her lover left the hotel early in the morning! In the second year, the unbearable anger turned into a passion for the man in bed. Ana was disgusted with her lover in the third year. However, something absolutely unimaginable happened with her in the fourth year!
Interestingly, Until August is not just a tale of an extramarital affair, but a love story in which love remains an infinite lifelong action! In this novel, love is a secondary issue, as waiting for the love to arrive is the real one! Ana waits for someone who will satisfy her with his touch. Maybe Ana disgraces herself by indulging in physical relations with an unknown person after a long wait. And then, she gets angry and frustrated. It seems difficult for most to be denuded in light, and hence people prefer darkness, during this act! Before getting naked, one has to switch off the lights of a room.
As usual, Márquez deals with love, patience, sex and memory in this novel. However, it would be a mistake to compare Until August with One Hundred Years of Solitude or with Love in the Time of Cholera. In the very beginning of this novel, the author creates a trap of repetition through his narrative. Instead of narrating Ana’s adventures every year in full novelistic detail, Márquez remains ruthless, indifferent and mature (as far as the lead character is concerned).
While reading Márquez, the majority of readers often forget that the author did not write in English. Hence, translators of his works deserve a place in the Hall of Fame of literature. After going through Gregory Rabassa‘s English translation of One Hundred Years of Solitude, Márquez himself famously said that the English version of the book was even better than the original Spanish one! As Rabassa (March 9, 1922 – June 13, 2016) passed away in 2016, Anne McLean has come forward to do the difficult job. In 2019, the Canadian translator of Spanish literature translated Márquez’s journalistic biography The Scandal of the Century: And Other Writings. One can also read Until August only to learn how to retain the essence (of the story-telling) of an author, who is as simple as a child and as serious as a saint, in simple but beautiful English!
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