Five minutes before boarding I picked up a book at the airport bookstore — flash shopping. Only later did I realize it was Gabriel García Márquez’s final work — the Nobel Prize-winning author of One Hundred Years of Solitude.
En agosto nos vemos (Until August) (amazon link) turned out to be a light companion for the flight home, and perfectly timed for late August. The novella follows a woman who returns each year on August 16 to a lonely island where her mother is buried. Each visit also an affair, a fleeting grasp at vitality amid solitude.
Slay.
Some reviewers call it “less polished,” even suggesting it “could have stayed in the drafts.” And yes — compared to Márquez’s masterpieces, it feels subdued. Yet, even here, his signature themes of loneliness and longing surface.
If you’re ever stranded at an airport, waiting for a short flight, this book might just fit into that in-between space — neither thrilling nor terrible, more like a glass of water: simple, unadorned, and maybe exactly enough for two hours.