macondo

One of my favorite places is Macondo, the locale created by my favorite writer. The online version of Macondo is here, replete with good stuff, part of The Modern Word (which also has stuff on writers ranging from Umberto Eco to James Joyce to Thomas Pynchon to Jeff Noon).

One of the reasons I admire Marquez is because of his developed manner of writing. Magic Realism bridges two sensibilities that inform my own writing: wonder and the fantastic, and a level of relevant reality.

My problem with the previous white canon of literature was that there was a dearth of texts that I could truly identify with. In the process of enjoying good writing, I felt marginalized.

But when Marquez and the other similar writers stormed in, the resulting deluge drowned me in colorful words that sang to me as they drew me deep - and in that moment, I knew I had found a literature that was "universal" to me.