Cristóbal Pera, the editor who worked on the manuscript, with Gabriel García Márquez, right. via Cristobal Pera

García Márquez’s last, nearly lost, novel

Toward the end of his life, when his memory was in pieces, Gabriel García Márquez spent years struggling to finish “Until August,” a novel about the secret sex life of a married, middle-age woman.

Finally, he issued a devastating judgment to his younger son: “He told me directly that the novel had to be destroyed,” said the son, Gonzalo García Barcha.

After much debate, García Márquez’s sons defied their father’s request. So this month, a decade after his death, his last novel will be published in nearly 30 countries — adding a new coda to the Nobel laureate’s work. It also adds to a rich literary history of work released posthumously, despite authors’ wishes.