Love in the Time of Cholera question

As a literature teacher I recommend you attack the whole concept of '3rd world' as out-dated and condescending. better to treat Marquez as a post-colonialist on the same shelf as Salman Rushdie and as a 'magic realist' along with Gunter Grass and Rushdie again.

I have never treated Gabriel Marquez as a "third world" writer, in fact he is one of my favourites. Since I manage to somehow understand One Hundred Years of Solitude, I read him and like him. He is intrepid, talks about sexuality and passions as if that is topic usually talked about and makes me understand it batter, and also understand me, and others around me better. We cannot apart ourselves from, not our sexuality, but from our passions, and if we don't manage to understand them, and try to fell them in right places, we would never be satisfied.
This is the first time I hear someone classes him as a "third world" writer, and why is that so? I am not even sure what a "third world writer" means?

The only geopolitical term that i can think of when it comes to 'El amor en los tiempos del colera' its "caribbean novel", and thats about it.

Take it easy on Ervin. I agree that third world is an incorrect term, but it is still widely used, and so, I think it is a simple misstep in a PC charged world, especially for someone young like Ervin. I really appreciate Ervin's interest and sincerity to learn and listen to all of these wise sages. Keep asking questions Ervin and being open to the answers. And great comments from all!

I have never thought about it that way.

First and foremost "Love in the Time of Cholera" is a magnificent story of unrequited love. In their youth, Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza fall passionately in love. When Fermina eventually chooses to marry a wealthy, well-born doctor, Florentino is devastated, but he is a romantic. As he rises in his business career, he whiles away the years in 622 affairs—yet he reserves his heart for Fermina. Her husband dies at last, and Florentino purposefully attends the funeral. Fifty years, nine months, and four days after he first declared his love for Fermina, he will do so again.

The lush, wondrous story of an unrequited love that survives half a century. It's one of my favorite books. Even as Garcia Marquez writes of the glory of romantic love, he reminds us of the cruelty of love lost.

In the final analysis Garcia Marquez is telling us that a fleeting moment unrequited love is far more powerful than hundreds of sexual encounters. Many people are willing to give their heart and their life in futile quest for elusive one who is always one step beyond the reach of the arm.

It doesn't do justice to the extraordinary talent of Garcia Marquez to place him in a generic category of a "Third World" or "South American" writer. Garcia Marquez's body of work is the equal of any of his European and American literary peers.

I really do not understand the term "third-world novel", I should be called... latin american novel, I do not know if this term exists in english but we call it "magical realism" = "Realismo Mágico" and we consider García Marquez, as a part of the "latinamerican boom of literature"... this movement comes after the "Modernismo" of Ruben Darío... I hope this to be of little help...

It's not a third-word novel. It's a good novel by a great writer maybe the best 20th century writer. However it's not the best Garcia Marquez. why don't you try One Hundred...

Marquez may not be a 'third-world' author (for many reasons) but there's nothing wrong with the term itself if used to describe South America or Africa or SE Asia. There is nothing inherently derogatory in it --not unless the person using it deliberately adds an inflection or context to make it demeaning. It's merely an economic descriptor; there was a good reason the phrase was coined in the first place, and it has a valid position in our modern lexicon. How exactly are you going to remove it from parlance, and what are you going to use in its place? My god. PC-harpies wear me thin. Stop trying to 'sanitize' language you dislike; this is more disgusting than any slur.