Historical Figure
Gabriel García Márquez
1927–2014
Colombian writer and Nobel laureate (1927–2014)
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Biography
Gabriel José García Márquez was a Colombian writer and journalist, known affectionately as Gabo or Gabito throughout Latin America. Considered one of the most significant authors of the 20th century, particularly in the Spanish language, he was awarded the 1972 Neustadt International Prize for Literature and the 1982 Nobel Prize in Literature. He pursued a self-directed education that resulted in leaving law school for a career in journalism. From early on he showed no inhibitions in his criticism of Colombian and foreign politics. In 1958, he married Mercedes Barcha Pardo; they had two sons, Rodrigo and Gonzalo.
In Their Own Words (5)
It always amuses me that the biggest praise for my work comes for the imagination, while the truth is that there's not a single line in all my work that does not have a basis in reality. The problem is that Caribbean reality resembles the wildest imagination.
p. 322 , 1981
I was asked the other day if I would be interested in the Nobel Prize, but I think that for me it would be an absolute catastrophe. I would certainly be interested in deserving it, but to receive it would be terrible. It would just complicate even more the problems of fame. The only thing I really regret in life is not having a daughter.
p. 339 , 1981
I would like for my books to have been recognized posthumously, at least in capitalist countries, where they turn you into a kind of merchandise.
p. 336 , 1981
I can't think of any one film that improved on a good novel, but I can think of many good films that came from very bad novels.
p. 338 , 1981
The most prosperous countries have succeeded in accumulating powers of destruction such as to annihilate, a hundred times over, not only all the human beings that have existed to this day, but also the totality of all living beings that have ever drawn breath on this planet of misfortune. On a day like today, my master William Faulkner said, "I decline to accept the end of man." I would fall unworthy of standing in this place that was his, if I were not fully aware that the colossal tragedy he refused to recognize thirty-two years ago is now, for the first time since the beginning of humanity, nothing more than a simple scientific possiblity. Faced with this awesome reality that must have seemed a mere utopia through all of human time, we, the inventors of tales, who will believe anything, feel entitled to believe that it is not yet too late to engage in the creation of the opposite utopia. A new and sweeping utopia of life, where no one will be able to decide for others how they die, where love will prove true and happiness be possible, and where the races condemned to one hundred years of solitude will have, at last and forever, a second opportunity on earth.
Nobel lecture (8 December 1982, archived) , 1982
Timeline
The story of Gabriel García Márquez, told in moments.
Working as a journalist in Bogota. Publishes a serialized account of a Colombian sailor who survived 10 days adrift on a raft. The story embarrasses the government because it reveals the navy ship was carrying contraband. The newspaper is shut down. Garcia Marquez is sent to Europe as a correspondent. He is 28, broke, and writing fiction at night.
One Hundred Years of Solitude is published in Buenos Aires. The first printing of 8,000 copies sells out in two weeks. It sells 50 million copies worldwide. He wrote it in 18 months of isolation in Mexico City, running up so much debt his wife pawned the heater.
Wins the Nobel Prize in Literature. He shows up to the ceremony in Stockholm wearing a white liqui-liqui, a traditional Caribbean suit, instead of a tuxedo. The fourth Latin American to receive the honor.
Dies in Mexico City at 87. Colombia's president calls him "the greatest Colombian who ever lived." His family later reveals he'd been suffering from dementia and had stopped writing years before. His last novel, published posthumously, was one he'd ordered destroyed.
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