The Fragrance of Guava

by Gabriel García Márquez

The book includes fourteen chapters about the different details of Gabriel García Márquez's life, from his origins, family, readings and influences to his works, politics, women, superstitions, and fame.

The conversation began talking about the personal life of the author, the ancestors of García Márquez, Aracataca his hometown, his grandparents; the book describes several of events that influenced García Márquez works, how his grandmother talked with deceased relatives and the death of his grandfather. In the book, Mendoza asked about García Márquez's relatives, and how a character of Leaf Storm resembles his grandfather. In the book, Mendoza and García Márquez discussed the works of the Nobel Laureate. There is a chapter dedicated to his writing routine, the main influences in his writing, and how some phenomena that appeared in his novels are based on real events. The author reviewed his own works; commenting that he considered The Autumn of the Patriarch a more important literary achievement than One Hundred Years of Solitude; and it also describes the years García Márquez had to wait until a work got some recognition, from the Leaf Storm his first novel, to One Hundred Years of Solitude passed 15 years. The book finished talking about the public life of García Márquez, the women that marked his life, his political preferences, and the celebrities he met during his life. García Márquez met people from all the different spheres, from writers and artists to politicians and ecclesiastic leaders. But at the end when Mendoza asked who was the most interesting person he had met, he answered: my wife.