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Everybody seems to be talking about Michael Lewis’s new book (Flash Boys), which has been featured on 60 Minutes and reviewed twice by the New York Times. The book is about something called high-frequency trading, which, I will admit, with some, but not too much, embarrassment, I know almost nothing about. Actually, the first time I heard of the existence of high-frequency trading was from a commenter on a post I wrote almost two years ago, about which I will have something more to say in a moment. Michael Lewis’s book is a polemic against high-frequency trading, alleging that it enables high-frequency traders to rig the stock market and exploit ordinary traders. Lewis makes his case by telling the story of a group of hedge-funds that have banded together to create an alternative trading platform IEX, thereby avoiding contact with the high-frequency platforms, which, according to Lewis…

“I’ve always been convinced that my true profession is that of a journalist.”

During an interview held at his house in Mexico City with the Paris Review, for the Winter 1981 edition of the literary magazine, Gabriel Garcia Marquez berated interviewer Peter H. Stone for bringing along a tape recorder to harness the accuracy of the exchange.

The interview, which occurred over the course of three late afternoon meetings spanning approximately two hours each, involved the Colombian artist speaking mostly in Spanish, with his sons translating much of his words.

Through it, Marquez provides illuminating insights into how a novel and a piece of journalistic literature are conditioned by the expectations of editors. Writing for newspapers versus novels impedes the flow of creativity, suggests Marquez, when he writes:

“I had to condition my thoughts and ideas to the interests of the newspaper. Now, after having worked as a novelist…