Book fest visits Garcia Marquez

Novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez wouldn’t travel to Wales to the Hay literary festival, so the annual book fest dubbed “the Woodstock of the mind” has gone to him in his native Colombia.

The idea of bringing an offshoot of the festival held in the Welsh town of Hay-on-Wye to the city of Cartagena was suggested by Mexican novelist Carlos Fuentes, who told festival founder Peter Florence that that was the only way Garcia Marquez would attend.

Colombia’s Nobel Prize winner is now billed as guest of honor at the four-day event that kicked off Thursday. Also on the bill are talks by British author Hanif Kureishi, Mexican writer Alma Guillermoprieto and rising Colombian novelist Jorge Franco.

Garcia Marquez provided the festival’s first stir by announcing he is suffering writers’ block and may not write again. The 78-year-old author of “Love in the Time of Cholera” and “One Hundred Years of Solitude” told the Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia that he hadn’t written a line in 2005 and wouldn’t unless he knew he was producing literature of value.

“With all the practice I’ve had, I could write a new novel without any problems, but people can tell when you haven’t put your heart into it,” he said.