Among the thousands of literary legends and images that Nobel Prize winner Gabriel García Márquez made famous in his 87 years of life, one of his best known included his wife, Mercedes Barcha. He said that he pawned several electrical appliances to be able to mail the novel that universalized Gabo. Mercedes Barcha died this Saturday in Mexico City, at the age of 87. The couple were married for 56 years and had two children, Rodrigo and Gonzalo. Her husband was in charge of making his partner's name famous for years, because although he was able to dedicate himself full time to letters, he would not have achieved it without the administrative and care work that she dedicated to him.
The day the writer finished the manuscript of One Hundred Years of SolitudeIn the 1960s, he and his wife went to the post office in Mexico to send it to the publisher in Argentina that was interested in the book. An official there weighed the manuscript and said that the shipment would cost 83 pesos, but Mercedes - who was the family administrator - said she had no more than 45 pesos. The two then decided to send only half of the manuscript, the part they could pay, and they kept the rest in hopes of sending it later. "So we went home and Mercedes took the last thing that was missing to pawn," Gabo said. She pawned the heater, her hair dryer, the mixer, and so Mercedes managed to send the rest of the novel that made her husband legendary. "Now the only thing missing is for the novel to be bad," she told him then angrily.
"His personality was unique, a singular mixture of absolute intelligence, strength of character, pragmatism, curiosity, sense of humor and secrecy," Jaime Abello Banfi, general director of the Gabo Foundation, said in a statement of condolence. “Dear Mercedes, you were the ground pole, we will never forget you. Your memory will inspire us ”.