Courtesy San Antonio’s Macondo Foundation will host Macondo Libre, an event designed to give writers and artists a platform to share their work about social change and justice.

Macondo is a fictional town in Gabriel García Márquez’s landmark novel, “One Hundred Years of Solitude.”

But in San Antonio, Macondo is anything but fiction: It represents the reality of working toward a more peaceful existence.

On July 29-30 and Aug. 1, a group of writers and artists that calls itself the Macondo Foundation, headed by author Sandra Cisneors, will present Macondo Libre. It’s an event that allows writers and artists to share their work about social change and justice.

Author John Olivares Espinoza, 29, who wrote “Aluminum Times” and “Gardeners of Eden,” said that during the event, writers and community guests will present excerpts of their work to the public.

Friday night’s La Palabra Peligrosa fundraiser will include performances by the poet Ai, Andrei Codrescu and Cisneros as well as musical guest the Krayolas.

The Macondo Libre events are part of a weeklong series of writing workshops created by Cisneros in 1998 to provide a space for writers who write for nonviolent social change and social justice.
Ten years later, the workshops have grown from a few meeting in Cisneros’ kitchen to dozens of writers from across the country gathering at Our Lady of the Lake.

Writer, poet and NPR commentator Andrei Codrescu expressed hope in an e-mail interview that the Macondo Libre events will bring joy to the public and encourage them to artistically share their view of society.

 “I would hope that they would feel joy and that they would be provoked to think, act, dance, maybe even make some of their own stuff. Poetry and art are contagious,” he said.

“I will be reading poetry and releasing blue pigeons to remind people of the blue tarps on top of houses in New Orleans after Katrina,” Codrescu said.

Espinoza said it’s a privilege to be able to study under high-profile writers like the poet Ai and Codrescu.

He said he enjoys the workshops because although various heritages, races and backgrounds are represented in the group, he feels surrounded by writers who have similar experiences.

“It makes it much easier to work on my poetry because I don’t have to explain Spanish words or why I used them instead of English,” Espinoza said. Espinoza has participated in the Macondo workshops for four years.

The Macondo workshops have special meaning for Espinoza. He met his future wife one day while he was on the OLLU campus and invited her to Noche de Macondo later that evening.

“We really hit it off there, and I had writers of all walks of fame walk up to us and put in a good word for me,” Espinoza revealed in a follow-up e-mail. “It must’ve worked. Who knows? Maybe that sort of magic can happen to someone at this year’s Macondo Libre.”

Samantha Hensley | 210SA