Gabriel Garcia Marquez: biography, photos and interesting facts

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Gabriel Garcia Marquez is a famous Colombian writer. Also known as a publisher, journalist and politician. One of the most prominent representatives of the literary movement known as magical realism. In 1982 he was awarded the Nobel Prize.

Writer's childhood

Gabriel Garcia Marquez was born in 1927. He was born in the town of Aracataca, Colombia. It is located in the Department of Magdalena.

His father was a pharmacist. When the boy was two years old, his parents moved to Sucre. At the same time, Gabriel Garcia himself remained to live in Aracataca. He was raised by his maternal grandfather and grandmother. Each of them was a brilliant storyteller, thanks to them the future writer got acquainted with numerous folk traditions, as well as linguistic features. They were of great importance in his work.

In 1936, grandfather died, 9-year-old Gabriel Garcia Marquez moved in with his parents. His father by then owned a pharmacy in Sucre.

Education of Marquez

The hero of our article received his primary education at a Jesuit college in the town of Zipaquira. He moved there when he was 13 years old. It is a small town located just 30kilometers from metropolitan Bogotá.

In 1946, his parents insisted that he enter the law school at the National University of Bogota. At the university, he met his future wife named Mercedes. Interesting fact: she was also the daughter of an apothecary.

In 1950, the future writer left his studies to become a journalist and writer. As the author himself later admitted, Virginia Woolf, William Faulkner, Franz Kafka and Ernest Hemingway had the greatest influence on him.

Working as a journalist

Journalistic career Gabriel Garcia began in the newspaper of the town of Barranquilla. Soon he became an active member of the creative group of writers and a journalist of this locality. There he was inspired to become a writer in the future.

In 1954, Marquez moved to the capital. Bogotá is starting to actively publish short articles on various topics and movie reviews.

In 1956, the hero of our article goes to Europe. He settles in Paris, writes reports and articles for Colombian newspapers. But at the same time, he cannot earn a lot of money, so he experiences certain financial difficulties.

Becoming famous, Marquez admits that at that time he had to collect old newspapers and bottles, because they gave a few centimes for them. Food, at times, was so lacking that the hero of our article borrowed the remains of the bones from the butcher to cook his own stew.

Marquez in the USSR

In 1957, Marquez visited the USSR. ATThe Soviet Union, he came to the festival of youth and students. An interesting fact is that he did not have a special invitation. In Leipzig, he managed to join a group of Colombian artists from the Folk Art Ensemble. It helped that he was good at singing, dancing and even playing drums and guitar.

He wrote about his trip to the Soviet Union in the essay "USSR: 22,400,000 square kilometers without a single Coca-Cola advertisement!". In 1957, the writer moved to Venezuela and settled in Caracas.

In 1958, he briefly comes to Colombia to marry Mercedes Barcha. Together, they return to Venezuela. In 1959, their first child is born, who is named Rodrigo. In the future, he will become a film director. Receives an award at the Cannes International Film Festival, will shoot one of the episodes of the black comedy "Four Rooms".

In 1961 the family moved to Mexico. Three years later, they have another son, Gonzalo. He became a graphic designer.

First publications

In parallel with the work of a journalist, Marquez begins to write. In 1961, his story "No one writes to the Colonel" was published. She remains little noticed, readers did not appreciate her. The circulation of the work is 2 thousand copies. Less than half are sold.

Marquez dedicates his first work to a 75-year-old veteran of the Thousand Days' War in Colombia. After the death of his son, he lives in poverty with his wife on the outskirts of the city. His whole life consists in waiting for a letter from the capital - to himshould appoint a pension, as a war veteran. But officials are silent. The only people who support him are his son's friends. He was killed for distributing political leaflets, his associates also carry out clandestine opposition activities.

In 1966, Marquez released the novel The Bad Hour.

One Hundred Years of Solitude

The novel "One Hundred Years of Solitude" brings Marquez worldwide popularity. Gabriel Garcia publishes it in 1967. For it, he received many awards. By all accounts, this is a key work, thanks to which the writer was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. His Nobel Lecture was titled "The Loneliness of Latin America".

"One Hundred Years of Solitude" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez is a story set in the fictional town of Macondo. But at the same time they are directly related to the history of the whole of Colombia.

At the center of the story is the Buendia family. For several generations, different members of this family rule the city. Some lead him to development, others turn into cruel dictators. The country is raging civil war, which has been going on for several decades. The city thrives when the banana company comes to it. But soon the workers stage a demonstration, which is shot by the National Army. The bodies of the dead are thrown into the sea.

After that, the rain falls on the city, which does not stop for five years. The last Buendia is born to live inabandoned and deserted Macondo. The novel "One Hundred Years of Solitude" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez ends with the city and houses of Buendia being wiped off the face of the earth by a tornado.

Marquez novels

Among his prose works, novels should be singled out. In 1975, he published "Autumn of the Patriarch", which tells about the life of a Latin American dictator, who is a collective image of all tyrants.

After 10 years, another novel of his called "Love in the Time of Cholera" comes out. It is about a girl named Fermina Daza, who marries Urbino, a doctor who is passionate about fighting cholera. It is interesting that in Russia the novel was also published under the title "Love during the Plague".

In 1989, Marquez released the novel "The General in his Labyrinth" about the last days of the life of Simon Bolivar, a fighter for the independence of the Spanish colonies. The last novel of the author was the work "On Love and Other Demons". All books by Gabriel Garcia Marquez were a success with readers. They were also published in large numbers in Russia.

Sickness and death

In 2000, under the name of Garcia Marquez, the poem "Doll" appears, in which rumors about the fatal illness of the Nobel laureate are confirmed. True, it soon became clear that the real author of this work was the Mexican ventriloquist Johnny Welch. Later, both admit the fact of error. However, you can still find excerpts from this poem on the Internet, signed with the name of the hero of our article.

In fact, cancerousa tumor in the lungs was discovered in the writer back in 1989. Most likely, the reason was his addiction to cigarettes. While working, he could smoke three packs a day. In 1992, a successful operation took place, thanks to which the development of the disease was suspended.

In 1999, doctors diagnosed him with lymphoma. After the most difficult operations in the USA and Mexico, he underwent a long rehabilitation course.

In 2014, the writer was hospitalized with a lung infection. On April 17, he died at the age of 88. The cause of death was kidney failure.