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  • The Paris Review

    When Mario Vargas Llosa Punched Gabriel García Márquez

    by Silvana Paternostro Mar 06, 2019 8 minutes

    In 1976, Mario Vargas Llosa hit Gabriel García Márquez with a right hook and promptly ended their friendship. Below, Gabo’s friends recall the incident and its aftermath.

    Gabriel García Márquez and Mario Vargas Llosa. Vargas Llosa photo: Arild Vågen.

    RODRIGO MOYA

    It was about eleven or twelve in the morning and I was in my house in Colonia Nápoles, where I had an office, a big house with an editorial office in one part, and in the other part I lived with my girlfriend and my two children. There’s a knock at the door and it’s Gabo and Mercedes. I was very happy and very surprised to see him. Gabo was already a friend of mine, but there are hierarchies in friendships. It was a friendship of guarded proportions. I was a newspaper photographer and he was what he is. Back then I didn’t presume to call him Gabo. Calling him Gabito was for me like calling Cervantes “Miguelito.” For me, he’s Gabriel García Márquez. They came for the photographs. He told me, “I want you to take some pictures of my black eye.” They came to my house because they trust me.

    He wore a jacket. It wasn’t the plaid one. It was another one. And she was in black with

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