Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Colombia’s best-known writer, will release a book of his speeches on October 29 in Spain and Latin America, called “Yo no vengo a decir un discurso” (“I am not here to give a speech”) reported El Espectador on Tuesday.
The book, which will be released six years after his last novel “Memories of my Melancholy Whores” will contain 22 texts, most of them currently unpublished.
Garcia Marquez had a strong aversion to public speaking, which he finally overcame, explaining in one speech “I became a writer in the same way I got up on this stage: a force.”
Some of the speeches are focused on writing, but many are focused on his concerns as a citizen–problems of Colombia, nuclear proliferation, education in Latin America, and ecological disasters.