Gabriel García Márquez: Colombian journalist reveals that the Nobel winner has a Mexican daughter

Taken from El Universal de México. It was an open secret, a rumor that ran without confirmation even from the Nobel funerals Gabriel Garcia Marquez, in 2014. Those who heard it and took it seriously thought that perhaps it would be released soon, but it was not.

He had to wait eight years for the journalist Gustavo Tatis Guerra to publish an entire chronicle in the pages of the Cartagena newspaper El Universal, under the title ‘A daughter, the best kept secret of Gabriel García Márquez’, revealing not only the name of the alleged daughter of the author of “One Hundred Years of Solitude”, but also the possible origin of his name and the fate he has followed without ever bringing to light the surname of the world-famous Colombian writer.

Tatis Guerra’s chronicle begins by recounting the relationship that existed between the assassinated Prime Minister of India Indhira Gandhi, who was one of the people who personally communicated with the writer when his Nobel Prize was announced in 1982 and whom he later saw, a year later, on a visit to India.

The journalist infers, based on subsequent statements by Gabo and an opinion by biographer Dasso Saldívar, that the name of the daughter he had out of wedlock with Mercedes Barcha was baptized in honor of the assassinated minister of India. The fact is that the chronicle points to the Mexican Indira Cato, daughter of the filmmaker and journalist Susana Cato, who wrote the scripts for some films together with García Márquez.

“A colleague of all solvency confirmed the existence of Indira, daughter of García Márquez”Tatis Guerra quotes what Saldívar told him, by way of confirmation of this fact, about which the García Barcha family has not said a word so far. Wrote the journalist who ended up publishing this news bomb this Sunday. Incidentally, he says that Saldívar, who had also been trying to confirm this rumor for some time, informed him that he saw an old photograph of Gabo with the girl on his lap and added: “I will not forget her as long as I live”. Even, Tatis collected, Saldívar managed to comment with Gerald Martin, another great biographer of García Márquez, about who or how this story should be told to the world.

Tatis claims to have confirmed the news that Indira Cato is the daughter of García Márquez with some relatives, in addition to Saldívar and Guillermo Angulo. He states that they kept silent “Out of respect for and loyalty to Gabo, they did not dare to mention the secret, much less to their own children.”

“García Márquez, the greatest literary genius of Colombia before the world, is already above good and evil, and everything that can be revealed about him today only reconfirms his splendid humanity and his infinite greatness that grows larger each time in the future. universe, beyond his death -says journalist Tatis Guerra in his chronicle- The secret cannot lose the deep meaning of the human. The heart of a man and the heart of a woman. The delicate intimacy of a genius like García Márquez”.

About Susana Cato (Mexico, 1960), Indira’s mother, it stands out that she wrote together with García Márquez and Eliseo Alberto Diego the screenplay for the film “No se Jugue con el amor” (1991). He also wrote with Gabo the script for the short film “The mirror of two moons”, directed by Carlos García Agraz.

In the trajectory of Susana Cato, she lists her career as a reporter and film critic for the magazine Proceso, between 1979 and 1980, programs for indigenous radio, stories and theater for television and multimedia. In 2000 she was director of culture for the Coyocán Delegation and is the author of plays such as El manicomio desde Fuera (2016). In addition, she is the author of two books: “Ellas. The women” of 68 and “Issir. Spoken portrait of an Iraqi migrant” (2019). Also, remember that he did an interview with García Márquez in 1996 for the magazine Cambio, entitled “In Colombia, the writer has no choice but to change his job.”

About Indira, says the journalist who studied Dramatic Literature and Theater at Unam and is now a film producer “with passion and professional rigor”. It stands out that in 2020 he won numerous awards for his first documentary: “Take my loves” (2014), directed by Arturo González Villaseñor, with a script co-written with him. Also, she was co-director of “How great are you, magazo!” (2019), a short film about the deceased illusionist known as Magician Chen Kai, among other works. He adds that he decided to take his mother’s last name. But he highlights that García Márquez, although he did not publicly acknowledge her, was aware of his daughter until the end.

There are no official statements from other people close to García Márquez. Although the journalist cites that the Nobel’s close friends knew about it and respected the silence around this news.