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News of a Kidnapping (Paperback)

by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Author) "SHE LOOKED OVER her shoulder before getting into the car to be sure no one was following her ..." (more)
4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
RRP: £7.99
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Product details

  • Paperback: 304 pages
  • Publisher: Penguin (7 Feb 2008)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0141032502
  • ISBN-13: 978-0141032504
  • Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.2 x 2.4 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 94,137 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in this category:

    #17 in  Books > Fiction > 20th Century Classics > Garcia Marquez, Gabriel

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Product Description

Review

Compellingly readable. A book with all the panache of Márquez's fiction, hitting home rather harder (The Sunday Times )

Marquez uses his novelist's instinct for emotional drama to give the reader a wonderfully immediate sense of his subjects' ordeal: their spiraling hopes and fears, their fantasies of escape, their desperation and despair. (New York Times )

The great strength of the book is the authority of its details. There is so much here that, as we say, no one would make up (Guardian )

A story only a writer of Márquez's stature could tell so brilliantly. A tour de force (Mail on Sunday )

Product Description

Pablo Escobar: billionaire drugs baron; ruthless manipulator, brutal killer and jefe of the infamous Medellín cartel. A man whose importance in the international drug trade and renown for his charitable work among the poor brought him influence and power in his home country of Colombia, and the unwanted attention of the American courts. Terrified of the new Colombian President’s determination to extradite him to America, Escobar found the best bargaining tools he could find: hostages. In the winter of 1990, ten relatives of Colombian politicians, mostly women, were abducted and held hostage as Escobar attempted to strong-arm the government into blocking his extradition. Two died, the rest survived, and from their harrowing stories Márquez retells, with vivid clarity, the terror and uncertainty of those dark and volatile months.
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Inside This Book (Learn More)
First Sentence
SHE LOOKED OVER her shoulder before getting into the car to be sure no one was following her. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews

22 Reviews
5 star:
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4 star:
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3 star:
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2 star:
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Average Customer Review
4.0 out of 5 stars (22 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A tragic but fascinating insight into Colombia's troubles, 6 Nov 2003
By A Customer
This review is from: News of a Kidnapping (Paperback)
This book tells the story of a group of people kidnapped by Pablo Escobar, the world's most notorious drug dealer, as bargaining chips in his bid not to be extradited from Colombia to the US.

I read this book after I married a woman from Medellin whose family had been through the pain of a relative's kidnapping (thankfully only for ten days). I bought it on Friday night and had read it by Monday morning, it is genuinely a book you do not want to put down.

Garcia Marquez really gets to the heart of the issue and gets across the personal feelings experienced by the hostages... and also their families, politicians, the kidnappers etc. His writing is fantastic and keeps you engaged at all times.

The book is deeply sad but also heart-warming and I occassionally found myself laughing out loud as I read it. It brings home to the reader how important the things we take for granted actually are compared with the trivia we tend to get most wound up/excited about.

I highly recommend it to everyone.

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars flawed, 6 Feb 2005
By Jonathan Baillie Strong "jbs" (london) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: News of a Kidnapping (Paperback)
Garcia Marquez returns to his original vocation as a journalist for this book, mixing factual reporting with narrative in documenting a series of kidnappings that took place during the turbulent period in Colombia at the beginning of the 90s.
It's an interesting idea to merge the two styles, providing the oppertunity to gain a deeper understanding of the reality that the victims had to endure and the events that occured in the wider context of the kidnappings; However, there was a sense of detachment throughout the whole book with the characters, who never really seemed to come to life....
Nevertheless, the book does go some way in conveying the complex political situations that occured during that time in an understable way.
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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars How can people live in such conditions?, 1 Feb 2001
By A Customer
This review is from: News of a Kidnapping (Paperback)
How can people live in such circumstances? This book really brought home the effects of the Colombian "drug wars", as well as providing a great insight into the nature of the human spirit. Wonderfully written as well. Strongly recommended.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars A factual novel
In News of a Kidnapping, Gabriel Garcia Marquez rewinds temporarily and returns to his journalistic roots, covering the personal histories of some of the most notorious kidnap... Read more
Published on 21 Aug 2007 by Teapot

5.0 out of 5 stars García Márquez as a journalist
"News of a Kidnapping" reveals García Márquez first passion: journalism. Though it's a novel, it's inspired on a series of real events that happened on Colombia several years ago... Read more
Published on 24 April 2003 by dmpulp

5.0 out of 5 stars Life, grit and glory
This is the fictional account of a turbulent time when Pablo Escobar kidnapped several journalists and relatives of government ministers. Read more
Published on 14 Feb 2003 by Mr. Roderick W. White

2.0 out of 5 stars disappointed
Having read and thoroughly enjoyed 100 years of solitude, I thought I'd read one of Marquez's real life stories. I have to say though that I was less than impressed. Read more
Published on 18 April 2002

4.0 out of 5 stars Marquez does journalism!
In this book, Marquez uses his great story telling skills to relay to us the story of the victims of Pablo Escobars political kidnappings in Medellin. Read more
Published on 21 May 2001 by johnussutherland

2.0 out of 5 stars was something lost in the translation???
This book shows how a gifted fiction writer can struggle with non-fiction. Makes what could have been a fascinating story into a rather dull one. Read more
Published on 25 Feb 1999

2.0 out of 5 stars A very confused narrative.
When reading this book I kept imagining the editor who received an incoherent manuscript from a famous author about a fascinating subject matter. Read more
Published on 17 Dec 1998

4.0 out of 5 stars Great account of the effects of a kidnapping
This is great book because it shows the emotions involved from all sides of a kidnapping in Colombia by the drugs baron Paola Escobar. Read more
Published on 12 Dec 1998

4.0 out of 5 stars GGM never fails to impress.
As a Canadian who has visited Colombia, it is refreshing to read about the drug trade events from the perspective of a Colombian citizen. Read more
Published on 6 Dec 1998

5.0 out of 5 stars Riveting ........ Once again great entertainment
The characters are fantastic . . its as if I could actually touch their spirit, their soul.... this could be real life. Read more
Published on 3 Dec 1998

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