In these conversations with a friend and contemporary the Nobel prize-winning Colombian novelist speaks movingly, revealingly and unaffectedly about his family background, his early travels and struggles as a writer, his literary antecedents and his personal artistic concerns. Guided by Mendoza, M#65533;rquez reveals - as transfigured in his work by the power of language - the heat and colour of the Spanish Caribbean, the mythological world of its inhabitants, the exotic mentality of its leaders.