Gabriel Marquez

Gabriel Garcia Márquez biography

Márquez was born on March 6th 1927, in Colombia. Between 1927 and 1936, Márquez was raised by his mother's parents, Doña Tranquilina Iguarán and Colonel Nicolás Ricardo Márquez Mejía. In 1936, Márquez and his brother returned to the care of their parents.

Early inspiration for Márquez's later works came from his grandfather and grandmother, who both told him fantastical stories based on real-life and historical events.

Márquez began his formal education after returning to the care of his parents. At first, Márquez undertook an internship in Barranquilla before studying at the Colegio Jesuita San José, where he published his first poems. Márquez later received a government scholarship and attended the Bogotá study house and the Liceo Nacional de Zipaquirá, from where he graduated in 1947.

Following his secondary studies, Márquez continued to pursue education, studying law at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia. In 1948, Márquez's University closed following the Bogotazo riots and Márquez continued his studies at the Universidad de Cartagena.

During this time, Márquez also developed his interest in writing and fiction. Márquez published his first work in the newspaper El Espectador on September 13th 1947. The work was a short story titled 'La tercera resignancion' ('The third resignation'). This short story was later published in Márquez's 1947 book Eyes of a Blue Dog (Ojos de perro azul).

Márquez stopped studying law in 1950 and instead went to pursue a career as a journalist, starting a career at the newspaper El Heraldo. Before this, Márquez wrote for the paper El Universal. In 1957, Márquez took on a permanent writer position at Momento, a magazine based in Caracas, Venezuela. Márquez worked for the paper for a year before resigning and becoming editor of the Venezuela Gráfica.

Whilst working as a journalist, Márquez published his first novel titled Leaf Storm (La Hojarasca) in 1955. Seven years later, in 1962, Márquez published In Evil Hour (La mala hora) before publishing his most famous novel, One Hundred Years of Solitude (Cien años de soledad), in 1967.

In 1999, fifteen years before his death, Márquez began writing his memoirs after being diagnosed with lymphatic cancer. Before his death, Márquez wrote his memoir Living to Tell the Tale (2002).

Gabriel Garcia Márquez books

Márquez published twenty-five novels and collections of short stories during his lifetime. He was renowned for his ability to produce work which was appealing and accessible for everyday readers and popular among literary critics.

Notable works by Márquez include;

• One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967)
• Love in the Time of Cholera (1985)
• The General and His Labyrinth (1989)
• Living to Tell the Tale (2002)

Bell-Villada noted in her 1990 book Garcia Márquez: The Man and His Work that Márquez often left out important information from his works to encourage the reader to be more involved in the novel's story. For instance, in Márquez's 1961 novel No One Writes to the Colonel, the characters are unnamed.

Commenting on his literary style in a 1998 New York Times article, Márquez stated;

Márquez often used the fictional village of Macondo as a setting in his work. This village was based loosely on his hometown Aracataca in Colombia, and acted as a geographically and culturally ambiguous Latin American setting for his stories.

Gabriel García Márquez criticism

Márquez's work was a combination of fantasy and reality, known as magic realism, through which he provided criticism of international and Latin American politics. Through maintaining a level of geographical, cultural, and political ambiguity in his work, Márquez presented both the Latin American experience and a universally understood human experience.

For instance, in his 1962 short story 'Big Mama's Funeral' ('Los funerales de la Mamá Grande'), Márquez satirically portrays organised public displays such as weddings and funerals to critique how power is manipulated to create imbalance. The story follows the death and funeral of Big Mama, opening with the statement;

This opening sets out the theme of power and how it is created and maintained. The Pope is an internationally powerful figure of religious prominence, suggesting to the reader that Big Mama must be a powerful person to have the Pope at her funeral.

However, the power which the legendary Big Mama appeared to have held seems more self-created by pompous displays and grand words. After her funeral, the garbage men come to sweep up the remnants of the village's display, marking an end to the story. This ending encourages the reader to consider power and its structures in a critical light, questioning whether Big Mama was as important as her funeral presented her to be.

Gabriel García Márquez quotes

Now that we know a bit about Gabriel García Márquez's life and literary works let's take a look at some notable quotes from his novels!

One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967), Chapter One

Here, Márquez sets out the history of his fictional town, Macondo. The town appeared in two of Márquez's short stories before being used as the setting of One Hundred Years of Solitude. It is in this novel that we see the development of the town from a small, isolated settlement, to a thriving area of commerce, to a struggling and almost non-existent area destroyed by a banana plantation.

By introducing Macondo and its origins at the novel's opening, Márquez highlights how although the story of One Hundred Years of Solitude is inspired by real occurrences, he is creating his own fantastical mythology around it.

Love in the Time of Cholera (1985), Chapter One

This moment sets up Love in the Time of Cholera's love story of Florentino and Fermina, as they fall in and out of love over the course of the novel. Florentino declares his love for Fermina at her husband's wake, just over fifty-one years since he first made such a vow of love to her. Although it is revealed that Fermina initially rejected Florentino, the character is determined to win her over, having spent the last fifty years trying to be worthy of her love.

'Gabriel García Márquez, The Art of Fiction', The Paris Review (1981)

In this quote, Márquez highlights the cross-over of fantasy and reality in his work. Although Márquez utilised ambiguous locations and geo-political markers in his works, the contents of his stories were heavily rooted in real instances and issues. By not setting his work in a specific country or region, Márquez allowed it to be relatable to a wider audience, as the themes covered, such as love, power, and solitude, affect all of our lives.