EL CORONEL NO TIENE QUIEN LE ESCRIBA (NO ONE WRITES TO THE COLONEL) - INSCRIBED TO CLAUDIA DE LA ESPRIELLA

Buenos Aires: Editorial Sudamericana, 1968. Second Argentine Edition (and third Spanish language edition overall, following Colombia and Mexico). An early edition of the author's highly-regarded 1961 novella, written between 1956-57 while he lived in Paris. This copy was originally owned by Ramiro de la Espriella (1921-2015), a lawyer, politician, and career journalist from Cartagena, Colombia, who was both a lifelong friend of García Márquez, and a fellow journalist at El Espectador. The two men, along with de la Espriella's brother Óscar, Clemente Manuel Zabala, Gustavo Ibarra Merlano, and Héctor Rojas Herazo, were part of a brilliant nucleus of authors, poets, and journalists who were credited for modernizing thought and enlightening an entire generation of Colombians during the 1940's-50's. García Márquez was a frequent visitor at the Espriella's family home - Loma del Diablo in Turbaco - where he would read excerpts from his novel in progress, La Casa, often late into the night. He and Ramiro shared a love for William Faulkner and Virginia Woolf, as well as a mutual disdain for André Maurois. The two men have been referred to as the political conscience of their time, and in de la Espriella's obituary in El Universal, his friendship with García Márquez was described thusly: "They laughed at life and death." Claudia de la Espriella is an author, noted essayist on Latin American and world literature, and like her father, has spent a lifetime in politics and public service in Colombia. Association copies of a close, personal nature seldom appear in the marketplace, especially those bearing inscriptions of any length or warmth. Klein A5.d.1. See Klein A2.c. Small octavo (17.5cm); original pictorial card wrappers; [6],7-91,[5]pp. This copy bears the ownership signature of the author's close friend, Ramiro de la Espriella, across the title page, dated Bogotà, 1969, and is later inscribed by García Márquez on the half-title page to his friends' daughter, where he makes clever use of the printed title, incorporating his inscription immediately after: "El coronel no tiene quien le escriba, pero Claudia sí: yo; Con un besote, Gabriel / 1975." Subtle tanning to text edges, moderate wear and some creasing to wrappers, with some light dust-soil to same; Very Good. Laid into this copy is an original color photograph (measuring 5 7/8" x 4"), with photographer Ricardo Torres' rubber-stamp on verso, above the following holograph notation: "García Márquez, Alvaro de la Espriella Fernández y Ramiro de la Espriella / "Vision Iberoamericana 2000" / Marzo 1994, Cartagena." Trivial handling, else Near Fine.