Cherchez La Femme

"Once there were two friends, literary lions who emerged from Latin America in the 1960s. They admired each other's work and from the first moment they met in Caracas in 1967 they became inseparable. Both spent time as impoverished writers in Paris before going on to enjoy literary success, in which time they both lived in Barcelona." Then, it all went horribly wrong: their companionship ended with "a tremendous blow to the left eye."

The Independent's Paul Vallely reports on the cause of the feud between Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Mario Vargas Llosa.