Ode to Marquez

Many thanks to Reed Johnson not only for taking us on a tour of Gabriel Garcia Marquez country [“Struggling Out of Its Solitude,” April 3], but for reminding American readers how much “realism” there is in the author’s famous “magic realism.” I shivered at the caption “Phantom Railroad” under the photo of the Aracataca train station. In “One Hundred Years of Solitude,” it is from this station that 3,000 corpses -- men, women and children -- were loaded onto trains to be carried away and dumped into the sea.

Today, Cienaga is the site of Puerto Drummond, created as the transport center for coal carried by private train from the La Loma mine, which was acquired by Alabama-based Drummond Co. after the International Monetary Fund compelled privatization. A civil suit in U.S. District Court in Alabama has been brought by a Colombian miners union charging Drummond and its CEO with conspiracy in connection with the abduction and killing of three union leaders by paramilitaries.

Diane Lefer

Los Angeles