April 23, World Book Day. A morning of brilliant Caribbean sunshine in Old San Juan, Puerto Rico, and across the island. Luis Rafael Sánchez, 89, the most important living writer in Puerto Rico, who will turn 90 next November, suggests beginning the conversation — later to continue on the cozy terrace‑balcony of his home — at a discreet and elegant restaurant, where everything seems to pause when the staff catch sight of “Wico,” the affectionate nickname by which the writer is known on the island.

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Few associate Gabriel García Márquez with the asphalt jungle of New York. Collective memory places the Nobel Prize-winner in the heat of Mexico, the hustle and bustle of Barranquilla or the elegance of Barcelona. But for Colombian graphic designer and author Iván Onatra, the Big Apple was a crucial — and at times, forgotten — stage in the scribe’s life. García Márquez’s time in the city that never sleeps takes on new life in Onatra’s bilingual design book Macondo York, in which he explores the writer’s love-hate relationship that lasted for six months, while he worked as a journalist for the Prensa Latina news agency.

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