Gabriel García Márquez, (born March 6, 1927, Aracataca, Colombia—died April 17, 2014, Mexico City, Mexico), Colombian novelist and one of the greatest writers of the 20th century, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982, mostly for his masterpiece Cien años de soledad (1967; One Hundred Years of Solitude).
2. Background Information
Marquez was born on March 6, 1927, in Columbia, and he died April
17, 2014, in Mexico.
He was a novelist, short-story writer, screenwriter, and a journalist.
Throughout Latin America, he was known as “Gabo”.
He was married to Mercedes Barcha Pardo.
Marquez had two children, Rodrigo and Gonzalo.
3. (Continued)
• Marquez studied law and journalism in Bogota and
Cartagena.
• His career in journalism began in 1948.
• He was a screenwriter, journalist, and publicist in Mexico City
during the 1960s.
• After being diagnosed with lymphatic cancer in 1999,
Marquez wrote his autobiography, “Vivir Para Contrarla”
(Living to Tell the Tale).
4. ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE
• Widely acclaimed as Marquez’s best work
• It was first published in Spanish in 1967. Since then, the work
has been translated into thirty-seven different languages,
and it has sold over thirty million copies.
• The genre was magic realism, which is a style of literature
where unrealistic or imaginary events are portrayed in a
believable, realistic manner. (Dictionary.com)
• The original title was Cien Anos De Soledad.
5.
6. (Continued)
• One Hundred Years of Solitude tells a story about Colombian history
and about Latin America’s struggles with colonialism, and also with its
own emergence into modernity.
• The rise and fall, birth and death of the mythical, but intensely real
Macondo, and the glories and disasters of the wonderful Buendía
family; make up an intensely brilliant chronicle of humankind's
comedies and tragedies. All the many varieties of life are captured
here: inventively, amusingly, magnetically, sadly, humorously,
luminously, truthfully (westernlibrarybookreview.com).
7. Reviews of This Novel
• “MORE LUCIDITY, WIT, WISDOM, AND POETRY THAN IS EXPECTED
FROM 100 YEARS OF NOVELISTS, LET ALONE ONE MAN.” —
WASHINGTON POST BOOK WORLD
• “THE FIRST PIECE OF LITERATURE SINCE THE BOOK OF GENESIS THAT
SHOULD BE REQUIRED READING FOR THE ENTIRE HUMAN RACE.” —
WILLIAM KENNEDY
9. Awards and Achievements
• Romulo Gallegos Prize in 1972 for One Hundred Years of
Solitude
• Neustadt International Prize for Literature in 1972
• Ariel Award for Best Original Story in 1975 for Presage.
• Nobel Prize in Literature in 1982.
• New York Times 10 Best Books Of The Year in 2003 for
Living to Tell the Tale.
10. Some of Marquez’s more known pieces.
• Love in the Time of Cholera (1985)
• No One Writes to the Colonel (1961)
• The Autumn of The Patriarch (1975)
• The General in His Labyrinth (1989)
• Living to Tell the Tale (2002)
14. Love in the Time of Cholera
Set in an unnamed Caribbean seaport, Garcia Marquez's extraordinary Love in
the Time of Cholera (1988) relates one of literature's most remarkable stories of
unrequited love. "This shining and heartbreaking novel," Thomas Pynchon wrote in
The New York Times Book Review, is one of those few rare works "that can even
return our worn souls to us."
Mary Wesley on Garcia Marquez's Love in the Time of Cholera:
"This is the funniest, most moving book I have read and re-read. Each reading
discovers fresh delights, a true classic. Garcia Marquez is the greatest South
American writer who doesn't hesitate to write of the spiritual and mundane in the
same paragraph."
