Remy is a freelance writer who has written extensively on Latin American art and literature. In the following essay, he examines García Márquez's use of fictional narrative techniques.

Like The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor (1986), a piece of journalism that was later adapted into book form, News of a Kidnapping (1997) chronicles actual events that, at first glance, may read as fiction. The book examines a turbulent period in Colombia's history, one that presaged an even more violent time to come. According to García Márquez, he wrote this book so that the "gruesome drama" of the kidnappings would not "sink into oblivion." One of the reasons why News of a Kidnapping succeeds as both reportage and literature is García Márquez's use of fictional devices and techniques to reveal, in poignant and memorable detail, the lives of...