New Delhi: Colombian-born Nobel laureate Gabriel García Márquez had an extramarital affair with Mexican writer Susana Cato in the 1990s and had a daughter with her who was named Indira, after the former Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi, UK-based The Times reported Wednesday.
Márquez, known for his bestselling novels like One Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera, admired Indira Gandhi, who was the first person to congratulate him when he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982, the report said.
He had worked with Cato, who was 33 years his junior, on two film scripts. Their daughter Indira Cato, now in her 30s, has been living with her mother’s surname and is a documentary producer in Mexico City. She has won several awards for a 2014 documentary on migrants passing through Mexico.
The Times report on the origins of Indira Cato’s name came two days after the late writer’s long-kept secret relationship was revealed. Colombian newspaper El Universal was the first to report the story Sunday. The Associated Press then confirmed it with two relatives of Márquez.
The revelations come nearly eight years after his demise.
Secret relationship
At the time of Indira Cato’s birth, Gabriel García Márquez was “happily” married to Mercedes Barcha for over five decades and with whom he had two children, said the Times report.
Family members of Márquez, quoted by El Universal, said they hadn’t spoken about the writer’s secret relationship previously out of “respect” for Barcha who died in August 2020, said the AP report.
Gabriel Eligio Torres García, one of the nephews of the Colombian writer who has been in touch with Indira Cato through social media, said Susana had also been discrete about her daughter’s lineage in a bid to keep her from the spotlight, the AP report added.
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