On the occasion of the writer's 80th birthday, el Cubano de la isla meditates upon (es) a fleeting encounter between Colombian novelist Gabriel García Márquez and Ernest Hemingway in Paris: “The sad thing is that when wake up tomorrow, I'm not going to be in Paris, but in Havana, and in spite of how fond García Márquez is of this city, it will be difficult for me ever to happen to run into him on a street corner. . . “