The year I turned ninety, I wanted to give myself a gift of a night of wild love with an adolescent virgin' He has never married, never loved and never gone to bed with a woman he didn't pay. But on finding a young girl naked and asleep on the brothel owner's bed, a passion is ignited in his heart - and he feels, for the first time, the urgent pangs of love. Each night, exhausted by her factory work, 'Delgadina' sleeps peacefully whilst he watches her quietly. During these solitary early hours, his love for her deepens and he finds himself reflecting on his newly found passion and the loveless life he has led. By day, his columns in the local newspaper are read avidly by those who recognise in his outpourings the enlivening and transformative power of love. The publication of "Memories of My Melancholy Whores" spearheads "Penguin's" celebration of Marquez's 80th birthday in 2007.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez:

Gabriel Garcia Marquez was born in 1927 near Aracataca, Colombia. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982. He is the author of One Hundred Years of Solitude, Love in the Time of Cholera, Living to Tell the Tale, among other works of fiction and non-fiction. This book is translated by Edith Grossman, widely recognized as the pre-eminent Spanish to English translator of our time.

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.