News Of A Kidnapping
(Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
Certainly Gabriel Garcia Marquez wrote "One-Hundred Years of Solitude"with his native Colombia inmind, along with the restof Latin America, all seemingly and eternally in thethrows of cultural andpolitical identity crisis. In News of A Kidnapping the literary guru of magical realism andcelebrated author of the "boom" generation novelists harkens back to his investigativejournalist roots to describe, for those interested as well as for students of Latin American culture and politics, what in a nutshell constitutes the complexities of life in that drug-tornnation,were violenceis as has matter-of-fact asGarcia Marquez'sreporting.
More than a detailed account of the 1990s abduction of seven prominent journalists by the notorious Medallin drug Cartel,Marquez not only illuminates the physical and psychological sufferingbrought about by the uncertainty of their situation, but the curious relationships occuring betweenthe captives and their captors. For themthe entire affair seems "nothing personal" but more an open-ended attempt by Pablo Escobar,jefe of the Cartel grown tired of relentless police pursuit,to save his skin, toforce government acquiescence to his demands that he and his cohorts avoid extradition to the U.S. The "Extradictables," as they're called, fear other fates as well; they want guarantees of safety in prison fromrival cartels.
Factors complicating release of the hostages twist and twine imcompatibly with family members whobeg government officials not to endanger loved ones by attempting rescue; brutal police militias which continue murdeousatrocities in Medallin's slumsdespite Escobar's threats to kill hostages if actions continue; guerrilla groups dualing for hearts and minds of the people; non-government and media figures exerting influence in the halls of government,urging concessions with drug lords.
In the process of telling the "story" of the hostages, Marquez provides an overview of a society driven by lawlessness,poverty, brutality and the impotence of a government and culture held hostage by all three.
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