Plinio Apuleyo Mendoza

Plinio Apuleyo Mendoza (born 1932) is a Colombian journalist, writer, and diplomat. Mendoza was named in honour to the Roman authors Pliny the Younger and Apuleius.

Plinio Apuleyo Mendoza born in Tunja, Boyacá in 1932, son of the lawyer and politic Plinio Mendoza Neira, who was witness to the murder of Jorge Eliécer Gaitán. He studied Politic Sciences at The Sorbonne in Paris.

He is very well known for his close friendship with the literature Nobel prize winner Gabriel García Márquez. Mendoza and García Márquez spent time in Europe during the early 60s. Mendoza published a biographical novel regarding the life and anecdotes of García Márquez and their circle of friends, poets, and writers during those years in Europe. The book was entitled "The Fragrance of the Guava".

Mendoza served as First Secretary of the Colombian Embassy in France, writing newspaper articles for several international publications at the same time. After returning to Colombia in 1959, he became a full-time writer and journalist.

Short stories

• The Deserter. Short Stories. 1974
• The day that we buried the weapons. 2014

Novels

• Vanishing years. 1979
• Five days at the island. 1997
• Between two waters. 2010

Non-fiction

• The flame and the ice. 1984
• People, places: selection of articles written in Europe and America. 1986
• Fire zones: the guerrilla in Colombia, reportage and analysis.
• Our painters in Paris. 1989
• The challenges of the power: open letter to former Colombian presidents. 1991
• The sun continues rising. 1994
• Those times with Gabo, 2000, extension of one of the chapters of 1984
• Wind time: portraits, mementos, 2002
• An unknown García Márquez, 2009
• Many things to tell, 2012
• Gabo: letters and mementos, 2013, an extension of the 2000 book
• The country of my father, 2013

As co-author

• The fragrance of guava. 1982 with Gabriel García Márquez
• Manual of the perfect Latino American idiot. 1996. With Carlos Alberto Montaner and Alvaro Vargas Llosa
• Manufacturers of misery: politicians, priests, soldiers, businessmen, unions ..., 1998, with Carlos Alberto Montaner and Alvaro Vargas Llosa
• The Return of the Idiot, 2007, with Carlos Alberto Montaner and Alvaro Vargas Llosa
• Latest news of the new Spanish American Idiot, 2014, with Carlos Alberto Montaner and Alvaro Vargas Llosa