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GABRIEL GARCIA MARQUEZ
{
gah-bree-el gahr-see'-ah mahr'-kays,'}
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| b. Mar. 6, 1928, is a major
Colombian novelist and short-story writer who was awarded the Nobel
Prize for literature in 1982. His masterpiece, One Hundred Years of
Solitude (1967; Eng. trans., 1970), is a family saga that mirrors the
history of Colombia. Like many of his works, it is set in the fictional
town of Macondo, a place much like Garcia Marquez's native Aracataca.
Mixing realism and fantasy, the novel is both the story of the decay of
the town and an ironic epic of human experience. Garcia Marquez began
his career as a reporter for El Espectador, for which he wrote (1955) a
series of articles exposing the facts behind a Colombian naval disaster.
These articles won him fame and were published in book form as Relato de
un naufrago (The Account of a Shipwrecked Person, 1970). Garcia
Marquez's novel The Autumn of the Patriarch (1975; Eng. trans., 1976)
again explores the theme of decay, this time by depicting with typical
exaggeration and ironic humor the barbarism, squalor, and corruption
that prevail during the reign of a Latin American military dictator.
Other works include three collections of short stories (No One Writes to
the Colonel, Eng. trans., 1968; Leaf Storm, Eng. trans., 1972; and
Innocent Erendira, Eng. trans., 1978), the novel In Evil Hour (1968;
Eng. trans., 1979), the novella Chronicle of a Death Foretold (1981;
Eng. trans., 1983), and the novel Love in the Time of Cholera (Eng.
trans. 1988). García Márquez, Gabriel (1928- ), Colombian novelist,
short-story writer, and Nobel laureate, known for his weaving of realism
and fantasy in his works. Born in Aracataca, he attended the National
University of Colombia but did not graduate. Instead, he became a
newspaper editor, working in Cartagena in 1946, in Barranquilla from
1948 to 1952, and in Bogotá in 1952. From 1959 to 1961 he worked for
the Cuban news agency La Prensa in Colombia; Havana, Cuba; and New York
City. García Márquez was a liberal thinker whose left-wing politics
angered conservative Colombian dictator Laureano Gómez and his
successor, General Gustavo Rojas Pinilla. To escape persecution, García
Márquez spent the 1960s and 1970s in voluntary exile in Mexico and
Spain. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1982 and is
considered one of the masters of the technique of magic realism. In the
early 1980s he was formally invited back to Colombia, where he mediated
between the Colombian government and leftist rebels. García Márquez's
best-known novels include El coronel no tiene quien le escriba (1958; No
One Writes to the Colonel, 1968), about a retired soldier; Cien años de
soledad (1967; One Hundred Years of Solitude, 1970***)
,
the epic story of a Colombian family, which shows the stylistic
influence of American novelist William Faulkner; and El otoño del
patriarca (1975; The Autumn of the Patriarch, 1976), concerning
political power and corruption. Crónica de una muerte anunciada (1981;
Chronicle of a Death Foretold, 1983) is the story of murder in a Latin
American town. Collected Stories was published in English translation in
1984. El amor en los tiempos del cólera (1985; Love in the Time of
Cholera, 1988), a story of romantic love, also takes place in Latin
America. El general en su laberinto (1989; The General in His Labyrinth,
1990) is a fictional account of the last days of South American
revolutionary leader and statesman Simón Bolívar. Del amor y otros
demonios (1994; Of Love and Other Demons, 1995) is the story of a a girl
who is believed to be possessed by demons. |
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| One Hundred Years of
Solitude (1967; Eng. trans., 1970), the
most widely read and acclaimed novel by Colombian Nobel Prize winner
Gabriel Garcia Marquez, has been translated into more than 30 languages.
Strongly influenced by Jorge Luis Borges, Cervantes, Franz Kafka, and
William Faulkner, this book of "magic realism" is the chronicle
of a fictional town called Macondo, which is often interpreted as
representative both of the author's own small hometown (Aracataca) and of
Western civilization. The story covers the 100 years between the founding
of the town and its destruction by a hurricane, thus beginning in Eden and
ending in apocalypse. The first part of the story concerns the
establishment of the town to which Gypsies, entrepreneurs, and artisans
find their way. There is a seed of destruction even in the Edenic
beginning, however: the founding couple, who are first cousins, are
terrified that their incest will produce a baby with a pig's tail, a fear
that haunts their descendants as well. Part two chronicles their colonial
history and ends with a cleansing flood. Part three chronicles the
destruction of the family and the town, presaged by the birth of the
dreaded pig-tailed baby.
   
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