The Enigma of Chavez

By Gabriel Garcia Marquez

His parents had a hardscrabble existence on a primary school teacher's salary. He had to help them since he was nine, selling sweets and fruits out of a wheelbarrow. At times he'd go on burro to visit his maternal grandmother in Los Rastrojos, a neighboring town which seemed a city because it had an electric plant with two hours of light at the beginning of the night and a midwife who had welcomed him and his four brothers into the world. His mother wanted him to be a priest, but he only got as far as altar boy. He rang the bells with such grace everyone recognized it by the pealing. "That's Hugo ringing them," they said. Providentially, among the books of his mother he encountered an encyclopedia. Its first chapter seduced him straight away: How to Triumph in Life.