Report Reveals Renowned Author Gabriel García Márquez’s Secret Daughter

The Love in the Time of Cholera author has a daughter named Indira from an extramarital affair with journalist and author Susana Cato.

(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

Gabriel García Márquez, renowned Colombian author and journalist, had, for decades, kept the public unaware about an intimate aspect of his personal life – his daughter – AP reported.

Colombian newspaper El Universal published the long-kept secret on Sunday, 16 January. The news was also confirmed to AP by two of the Nobel Prize-winning author's relatives.

Famous for novels like One Hundred Years of Solitude, García Márquez died in Mexico City in 2014, where thousands of his ardent readers gathered to pay respect at his casket in a concert hall. He was married to Mercedes Barcha, for more than five decades, and lived in Mexico City with their two children, Rodrigo and Gonzalo.

In the early 1990s, El Universal reported, García Márquez had a daughter with Susana Cato. She was a writer and journalist who worked with him on two movie scripts and also interviewed him for a 1996 magazine story. Their daughter Indira is now in her early 30s and uses her mother’s surname.

One of the writer’s nieces, Shani García Márquez, told AP that she had not mentioned about her cousin Indira to the media despite knowing about her for years. Her parents always asked her to be guarded about the author’s personal life.

Gabriel Eligio Torres García, a nephew of García Márquez, said although he never met her in person, he has been in touch with Indira Cato through social media. He was further quoted as saying that his cousins Rodrigo and Gonzalo told him about her casually during a reunion.

Other members of García Márquez’s family said they had not spoken about Indira out of “respect” for Mercedes Barcha who died in August 2020, El Universal reported.

Torres García said that Susana, her mother, in order to keep her away from the media had also been close-lipped about her daughter’s lineage.

Now a documentary producer in Mexico City, Indira Cato has won several awards for a 2014 documentary on migrants passing through Mexico. Shani García was quoted saying, “She leads a very artistic lifestyle, like many people in this family. It makes us very happy that she has shined on her own,” AP reported.

García Márquez’s family said they were not authorised to share her contact information. AP could not contact Indira Cato independently.