Gabriel García Márquez

Gabriel García Márquez Biography

Gabriel García Márquez was a novelist, short story writer, screenwriter, editor and journalist, Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982 and one of the great masters of universal literature. He was born in Aracataca (Magdalena), Colombia on March 6, 1927. Son of Gabriel Eligio García and Luisa Santiaga Márquez Iguarán.

He was raised by his maternal grandparents: Tranquilina Iguarán Cortés and Colonel Nicolás Márquez who was an essential figure in his life, his personality influenced several of his characters. He was known familiarly and by his friends as GABITO.

Gabriel García Márquez was the main figure of the so-called Boom of Hispano-American Literature. He attended secondary school at the San José Jesuit School in 1940. Later, thanks to a scholarship granted by the government, he was sent to Bogotá, where he was relocated to the Liceo Nacional de Zipaquirá, a town about an hour away from Bogota. After his graduation in 1947, he remained in Bogotá, studied law and journalism at the National University of Colombia where he devoted himself especially to reading. The early years of his childhood marked decisively his work as a writer. The richness of the traditions passed down by his grandparents inspired a good part of his work. His desire to be a writer grew, and he published his first story, The Third Resignation, on September 13, 1947, in the newspaper El Espectador.

After the Bogotazo in 1948, a bloody revolt unleashed by the murder of popular leader Jorge Eliecer Gaitán, on April 9, the University closed indefinitely. Gabo moved to the National University in Cartagena and began working as a reporter for El Universal. In 1950, he quit becoming a lawyer and dedicated himself to journalism, traveled to Barranquilla to work as a reporter and columnist for the newspaper “El Heraldo”, and actively participated in the literary gatherings of the so-called “Grupo de Barranquilla”. He traveled to Aracataca in order to sell his native house, but he feels that his real interest was to write about the world of his childhood.

“Life is not what you lived, but what you remember and how you remember it to tell it.” Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Although Gabriel García Márquez never finished his college studies, the University of Columbia and New York granted him a Doctorate Honoris Causa, in Letters. In 1954, he entered the editorial office of the newspaper El Espectador.

In 1955, he published his first novel “La Hojarasca”. In this first book and in some of the novels and stories began to distinguish the Village of Macondo and some characters that would configure One Hundred Years of Solitude. The publication of the “Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor” in installments in El Espectador, is censored by the Regime of Rojas Pinilla and Gabriel García Márquez is exiled.

He would marry Mercedes Barcha in March 1958 at the church of Nuestra Señora Del Perpetuo Socorro in Barranquilla. They had two sons: Rodrigo born in Bogotá in 1959 and who became a filmmaker and Gonzalo Born in Mexico three years later, now a graphic designer in the Mexican capital.

The magazine Mito in this same year publishes “No one writes to the Colonel” a book that finished in January of 1957 in Paris.

In 1962, he published the novel “La Mala Hora” and a collection of short stories “Los Funerales de Mama Grande”.

Gabriel García Márquez, had residences in Paris, Bogotá, and Cartagena de Indias. However, he lived most of his life in Mexico City, where he had settled since the early 1960s and where he wrote “One Hundred Years of Solitude” that was published in June 1967 in Buenos Aires (Argentina). The success of this novel was resounding and translated into more than 24 languages winning four international awards. In 1969, the novel won the Chianciano Terme in Italy and was named “The Best Foreign Book” in France.

In 1970, it was published in English and was chosen as one of the best twelve books of the year in the United States. Two years later Gabo would be awarded the Rómulo Gallegos Prize and the Neustadt International Literature Prize (American Literary Prize). Also, it publishes in the form of book “Story of a Castaway”.

In 1973, he published the collection of stories The incredible and sad story of the “Candida de Erendira and her heartless grandmother”.

In 1975, he published “The Autumn of the Patriarch”, a novel he wrote for eight years.

Later, in 1981, he published “Crónica de Una Muerte Anunciada”

, a novel inspired by a real-life event that occurred during his youth. In this same year, he was granted the “Legion of Honor of France” returning to Colombia again, where he encountered problems because the liberal government of Julio César Turbay Ayala accused him of financing the guerrilla group M-19. He fled for political asylum in Mexico.

“No person deserves your tears, and whoever deserves will not make you cry.” Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

1982, the Swedish Academy grants him the “Nobel Prize for Literature”, for his novels and short stories in which the fantastic and the real are combined in a peaceful world of rich imagination where it reflects the life and conflicts of a continent. He was the first Colombian and the fourth Latin American to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. His acceptance speech was called “The Loneliness of Latin America”.

His popularity also led him to have a friendship with powerful leaders including Fidel Castro, friendship analyzed by them as Portrait of a Friendship. In an interview conducted by Claudia Dreifus in that same year, he said that his relationship with Fidel Castro was based on Literature. “Ours is an intellectual friendship. Fidel is an educated man and when we are together we talk a lot about Literature”.

In 1985, he publishes “Love in the Time of Cholera” with an initial edition of 750 thousand copies, and in 1986 he would publish the “Miguel Littin’s Adventure clandestinely in Chile”.

From 1986 to 1988, Gabriel lived and worked in Mexico D.F. In 1989 he published the historical novel “El general en Su Laberinto”, about the figure of the Liberator Simón Bolívar. Three years later, he published “Twelve Pilgrim Tales”, a collection of short stories. In 1994, he published the monologue Diatriba de Amor contra un hombre sentado. In 1996, Gabriel released “News of a Kidnapping” where he combined the testimonial orientation of journalism and his own narrative style.

In 1999, he was diagnosed with lymphatic cancer. The first part of his memories called “Vivir Para Contarla” was published in 2002, and in 2004 he published the short novel “Memories of my sad whores”.

Gabriel García Márquez died on April 17 2014 in Mexico City, at the age of 87, at his residence in the town of Pedregal de San Ángel in Mexico City.

FEATURED WORKS

1955 “La Hojarasca”
1961 “No one writes to the Colonel.”
1962 “La Mala Hora”
1962 “The Funerals of Mama Grande.”
1967 “One Hundred Years of Solitude.”
1968 “Isabel watching rain in Macondo.”
1968 “The novel in Latin America: Dialogue (Juno to Mario Vargas Llosa).”
1970 “Story of a Castaway.”
1972 “The incredible and sad story of the Candida Eréndira and of his Desalmed Grandmother.”
1972″ Blue Dog Eyes. “
1972″ The black man who made the Angels wait.”
1973″ When I was happy and undocumented. “• 1974″ Chile, the coup and the Gringos.”
1975 “The Autumn of the Patriarch.”
1975 “All the stories of Gabriel García Márquez: 1947-1972.”
1976 “Chronicles and Reports.” • 1977 “Operation Carlota.”
1978 “Militant Journalism.”
1978 ” Travel through the Socialist Countries.”
1978″ La Tigra.”
1981″ Chronicle of an Annunciated Death “.
1981 “Journalistic Work.”
1981 “The Happy Summer of Mrs. Forbes.”
1981 “The Trail of Your Blood in the Snow.”
1982 “The Kidnapping: Cinematographic Screening.”
1982 “Viva Sandino.”
1985 “Love in the Time of Cholera.”
1986 “The Adventure of Miguel Littín, Clandestine in Chile.”
1987 “Diatribe of Love against a seated man: monologue in an Act.”
1989 “The General in his Labyrinth”
1990 “Press Releases”, 1961 – 1984.
1992 “Twelve Pilgrim Stories.”
1994 “From Love and Other Demons.”
1995 “How to Tell a Story.”
1995 “I Rent to Dream”.
1996 “News of a Kidnapping.”
1996 “For a country within the reach of children.”
1998 “The Blessed Mania of Telling.”
1999 “For Free: Journalistic Work (1974-1995.”
2002 ” Live To Tell It. “
2004″ Memory of my sad whores. “
2010″ I do not come to say a speech.”

GARCÍA MÁRQUEZ, IN ADDITION TO THE NOBEL AWARD, RECEIVED MANY OTHERS DISTINCTIONS AND TRIBUTE FOR HIS WORKS

ESSO Novel Award for “La Mala Hora” (1961)
Doctor Honoris Causa of the “Columbia University in New York (1971)
Rómulo Gallegos Award for “One Hundred Years of Solitude” (1972)
Medal of the Legion of Honor of France in Paris (1981)
Aztec Eagle Award in Mexico (1982)
Award 40 years of the circle of journalists of Bogotá (1985)
In 2015, the Bank of the Republic of Colombia announced a new series of tickets (nomination of 50,000 pesos) where its image would appear and which began circulation in 2016.