Colombian writer left unprinted work

MEXICO CITY - Novelist and Pulitzer Prize-winner Gabriel Garcia Marquez left behind an unpublished manuscript that he chose not to print while he was alive, an editor said Tuesday as the writer’s compatriots held a musical tribute to him in his native Colombia.

Cristobal Pera, editorial director of Penguin Random House Mexico, said Garcia Marquez’s family had not yet decided whether to allow the book to be released, or which publisher would get the rights. Garcia Marquez died at his Mexico City home Thursday.

The manuscript has a working title of We’ll See Each Other in August.

An excerpt of the manuscript published in Spain’s La Vanguardia newspaper contains what appears to be an opening chapter, describing a trip taken by a married woman in her 50s who visits her mother’s grave on a tropical island every year. In the chapter, she has an affair with a man of about the same age at the hotel where she stays.

In Bogota, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos presided over a tribute held in Garcia Marquez’s honor.

The Bogota Symphony Orchestra performed Mozart’s “Requiem” in the capital’s colonial-era cathedral, which was festooned with thousands of roses in yellow, the author’s favorite color.

The ceremony included a performance of the accordion-heavy vallenato music Garcia Marquez loved and which accompanied him in 1982 when he was awarded in Stockholm the Nobel Prize for literature.

Front Section, Pages 5 on 04/23/2014

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