"I preferred her asleep": Gabriel García Márquez Reimagines Briar Rose.

García Márquez, Gabriel, 1927-2014; Sleeping Beauty, The (Short story); Briar Rose (Short story); Fairy tales; Romantic friendship

In more than a half century of writing fiction, Colombian Nobel Laureate Gabriel García Márquez has crafted his share of fairy tales, but the story of Sleeping Beauty, or Briar Rose, seems to hold special meaning for him. Allusions to this fairy tale have appeared in several of his works, but García Márquez does more than just allude to Sleeping Beauty. He gives readers new incarnations of Briar Rose, reimagining her as a dead Caribbean dictator, a beautiful woman asleep on an airplane, and an adolescent girl christened Delgadina by the nonagenarian who falls in love with her. García Márquez's depictions of Briar Rose get progressively more ludicrous, as he mocks humanity's unhealthy romantic obsessions and our almost desperate need to believe in "happily ever after." García Márquez distorts the Sleeping Beauty archetype to show how absurd and even dangerous it is, challenging readers to re-examine their own romantic fantasies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]