| News of a Kidnapping Contributor(s): García Márquez, Gabriel (Author), Grossman, Edith (Translator) |
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ISBN: 1400034930 ISBN-13: 9781400034932 Publisher: Vintage OUR PRICE: $15.30 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: January 2008 Annotation: This astonishing book by the Nobel laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez chronicles the 1990 kidnappings of ten Colombian men and women--all but one a journalist--by the Medellin drug boss Pablo Escobar. The carefully orchestrated abductions were Escobar's attempt to extort from the government its assurance that he, and other narcotics traffickers, would not be extradited to the United States if they were to surrender. From the highest corridors of government to the domain of the ruthless drug cartels, we watch the unfolding of a bizarre drama replete with fascinating characters: Cesar Gaviria, the nation's cool and secretive president; Diana Turbay, a famous television journalist and magazine editor; three indomitable women who are imprisoned for miserable months in a small room with a light perpetually on; an eighty-two-year-old priest with a mission to bring the regime and the cartel to the negotiating table; and Escobar himself, the legendary drug baron who changes his bodyguards daily and maintains a private zoo with giraffes and hippos from Africa. All of this takes place in a country where presidential candidates and cabinet officers are routinely assassinated; where police go into the Medellin slums to murder boys they think may be working for Escobar; but where brave and honest citizens are trying desperately to make democracy survive. An international best-seller, News of a Kidnapping combines journalistic tenacity with the breathtaking language and perception that distinguish the writings of Gabriel Garcia Marquez. It draws us into a world that, like some phantasmagorical setting in a great Garcia Marquez novel, we can scarcely believe exists--but that continuallyshocks us with its cold, hard reality. "From the Hardcover edition." |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - True Crime | Organized Crime - History | Latin America - South America |
| Dewey: 364.154 |
| LCCN: 2008271273 |
| Series: Vintage International |
| Physical Information: 0.66" H x 5.26" W x 8" (0.49 lbs) 304 pages |
| Themes: - Cultural Region - Latin America - Chronological Period - 1990's |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: In 1990, fearing extradition to the United States, Pablo Escobar - head of the Medell n drug cartel - kidnapped ten notable Colombians to use as bargaining chips. With the eye of a poet, Garc a M rquez describes the survivors' perilous ordeal and the bizarre drama of the negotiations for their release. He also depicts the keening ache of Colombia after nearly forty years of rebel uprisings, right-wing death squads, currency collapse and narco-democracy. With cinematic intensity, breathtaking language and journalistic rigor, Garc a M rquez evokes the sickness that inflicts his beloved country and how it penetrates every strata of society, from the lowliest peasant to the President himself. |