Misplaced Pages

Gabriel García Márquez

Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.
#160839

76-593: Gabriel José de la Concordia García Márquez ( Latin American Spanish: [ɡaˈβɾjel ɣaɾˈsi.a ˈmaɾ.kes] ; 6 March 1927 – 17 April 2014) was a Colombian writer and journalist, known affectionately as Gabo ( [ˈɡaβo] ) or Gabito ( [ɡaˈβito] ) throughout Latin America. Considered one of the most significant authors of the 20th century, particularly in the Spanish language , he

152-413: A Friendship. It was during this time that he was punched in the face by Mario Vargas Llosa in what became one of the largest feuds in modern literature. In an interview with Claudia Dreifus in 1982 García Márquez noted his relationship with Castro was mostly based on literature: "Ours is an intellectual friendship. It may not be widely known that Fidel is a very cultured man. When we're together, we talk

228-661: A Funeral ) filmed Love in the Time of Cholera in Cartagena , Colombia, with the screenplay written by Ronald Harwood ( The Pianist ). The film was released in the U.S. on 16 November 2007. In 1999 García Márquez was misdiagnosed with pneumonia instead of lymphatic cancer . Chemotherapy at a hospital in Los Angeles proved to be successful, and the illness went into remission. This event prompted García Márquez to begin writing his memoirs: "I reduced relations with my friends to

304-602: A Liberal candidate. During the parliamentary elections of 14 March 2010, the Liberal Party obtained 17 senators and 37 representatives, placing third in both the Chamber of Representatives and Senate. At the 2010 presidential election Liberal candidate Rafael Pardo finished sixth with 4.38% of the vote, worse than Horacio Serpa's 2006 vote. The Liberal Party went on to join the governing coalition of President Juan Manuel Santos , and supported his bid for reelection in

380-414: A daughter with Mexican writer Susana Cato, part of an extramarital affair. They named her Indira, and she took her mother's last name. García Márquez started as a journalist and wrote many acclaimed non-fiction works and short stories. He is best known for his novels, such as One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967) which sold over fifty million copies, Chronicle of a Death Foretold (1981), and Love in

456-452: A foreign correspondent. He wrote about his experiences for El Independiente , a newspaper that briefly replaced El Espectador during the military government of General Gustavo Rojas Pinilla and was later shut down by Colombian authorities. García Márquez's background in journalism provided a foundational base for his writing career. Literary critic Bell-Villada noted, "Owing to his hands-on experiences in journalism, García Márquez is, of all

532-571: A formal ceremony in Mexico City, where García Márquez had lived for more than three decades. A funeral cortege took the urn containing his ashes from his house to the Palacio de Bellas Artes , where the memorial ceremony was held. Earlier, residents in his home town of Aracataca in Colombia's Caribbean region held a symbolic funeral. In February 2015, the heirs of Gabriel García Márquez deposited

608-416: A great deal about literature." This relationship was criticized by Cuban exile writer Reinaldo Arenas , in his 1992 memoir Antes de que Anochezca ( Before Night Falls ). Due to his newfound fame and his outspoken views on US imperialism , García Márquez was labeled as a subversive and for many years was denied visas by US immigration authorities. After Bill Clinton was elected US president, he lifted

684-601: A journalist while studying law at the National University of Colombia . In 1948 and 1949, he wrote for El Universal in Cartagena . From 1950 until 1952, he wrote a "whimsical" column under the name of " Septimus " for the local paper El Heraldo in Barranquilla . García Márquez noted of his time at El Heraldo , "I'd write a piece and they'd pay me three pesos for it, and maybe an editorial for another three." During this time he became an active member of

760-525: A legacy of the writer in his Memoriam in the Caja de las Letras of the Instituto Cervantes . In every book I try to make a different path ... . One doesn't choose the style. You can investigate and try to discover what the best style would be for a theme. But the style is determined by the subject, by the mood of the times. If you try to use something that is not suitable, it just won't work. Then

836-703: A minimum, disconnected the telephone, canceled the trips and all sorts of current and future plans", he told El Tiempo , the Colombian newspaper, "and locked myself in to write every day without interruption." In 2002, three years later, he published Living to Tell the Tale ( Vivir para Contarla ), the first volume in a projected trilogy of memoirs. In 2000 his impending death was incorrectly reported by Peruvian daily newspaper La República . The next day other newspapers republished his alleged farewell poem, "La Marioneta," but shortly afterward García Márquez denied being

SECTION 10

#1732779610161

912-585: A novel based on his grandparents' house where he grew up. However, he struggled with finding an appropriate tone and put off the idea until one day the answer hit him while driving his family to Acapulco . He turned the car around and the family returned home so he could begin writing. He sold his car so his family would have money to live on while he wrote. Writing the novel took far longer than he expected; he wrote every day for 18 months. His wife had to ask for food on credit from their butcher and baker as well as nine months of rent on credit from their landlord. During

988-510: A speedy recovery". Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos said his country was thinking of the author and said in a tweet: "All of Colombia wishes a speedy recovery to the greatest of all time: Gabriel García Márquez." García Márquez died of pneumonia at the age of 87 on 17 April 2014, in Mexico City. His death was confirmed by Fernanda Familiar on Twitter, and by his former editor Cristóbal Pera. The Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos mentioned: "One Hundred Years of Solitude and sadness for

1064-638: A television and film director, was born. In 1961, the family traveled by Greyhound bus throughout the southern United States and eventually settled in Mexico City . García Márquez had always wanted to see the Southern United States because it inspired the writings of William Faulkner . Three years later, the couple's second son, Gonzalo García, was born in Mexico. As of 2001, Gonzalo is a graphic designer in Mexico City. In January 2022, it

1140-601: A title, to be published by the end of the year. However, in April 2009 his agent, Carmen Balcells , told the Chilean newspaper La Tercera that García Márquez was unlikely to write again. This was disputed by Random House Mondadori editor Cristobal Pera, who stated that García Márquez was completing a new novel whose Spanish title was to be En agosto nos vemos ( lit. transl.   We'll Meet in August ). In 2023 it

1216-688: Is a centre to centre-left political party in Colombia . It was founded as a classical liberal party but later developed a more social-democratic tradition, joining the Socialist International in 1999. The Liberal Party along with the Colombian Conservative Party dominated the Colombian political scene from the end of the 19th century until 2002, in bipartisan political hegemony. The two parties were in direct military conflict between 1948 and 1958, during

1292-407: Is all around them". Love in the Time of Cholera is based on the stories of two couples. The young love of Fermina Daza and Florentino Ariza is based on the love affair of García Márquez's parents. But as García Márquez explained in an interview: "The only difference is [my parents] married. And as soon as they were married, they were no longer interesting as literary figures." The love of old people

1368-473: Is based on a newspaper story about the death of two Americans, who were almost 80 years old, who met every year in Acapulco. They were out in a boat one day and were murdered by the boatman with his oars. García Márquez notes, "Through their death, the story of their secret romance became known. I was fascinated by them. They were each married to other people." News of a Kidnapping ( Noticia de un secuestro )

1444-459: The 2014 Colombian presidential election . For the 2018 Colombian presidential election , the party nominated former Vice President from 1994-1996 Humberto De la Calle . De La Calle was eliminated in the first round, and for the second round declined to endorse either of the candidates, announcing he would cast a blank vote instead. The party did not run a presidential candidate for the 2022 Colombian presidential election , and instead endorsed

1520-463: The Cali Cartel to fund his campaign. While Samper had immunity to prosecution as president, a number of his close associates were convicted of involvement in the so-called Proceso 8000 scandal, including Defence Minister Fernando Botero Zea . Partly due to the scandal the Liberal Party lost seats in the 1998 parliamentary election , although it remained easily the largest party. More seriously,

1596-494: The 13 September 1947 edition of the newspaper El Espectador . From 1947 to 1955, he wrote a series of short stories that were later published under the title of "Eyes of a Blue Dog". Though his passion was writing, he continued with law in 1948 to please his father. After the Bogotazo riots on 9 April following the assassination of a popular leader Jorge Eliécer Gaitán , the university closed indefinitely and his boarding house

SECTION 20

#1732779610161

1672-460: The 18 months of writing, García Márquez met with two couples, Eran Carmen and Álvaro Mutis , and María Luisa Elío and Jomí García Ascot , every night and discussed the progress of the novel, trying out different versions. When the book was published in 1967, it became his most commercially successful novel, One Hundred Years of Solitude ( Cien años de soledad ; English translation by Gregory Rabassa , 1970), selling over 50 million copies. The book

1748-483: The Colonel. Gabriel Eligio García was not the man the Colonel had envisioned winning the heart of his daughter: Gabriel Eligio was a Conservative , and had the reputation of being a womanizer. Gabriel Eligio wooed Luisa with violin serenades, love poems, countless letters, and even telephone messages after her father sent her away with the intention of separating the young couple. Her parents tried everything to get rid of

1824-573: The Conservative government." This influenced his political views and his literary technique so that "in the same way that his writing career initially took shape in conscious opposition to the Colombian literary status quo, García Márquez's socialist and anti-imperialist views are in principled opposition to the global status quo dominated by the United States." Ending in controversy, his last domestically written editorial for El Espectador

1900-479: The Italian director Francesco Rosi directed the movie Cronaca di una morte annunciata based on Chronicle of a Death Foretold . Several film adaptations have been made in Mexico, including Miguel Littín 's La Viuda de Montiel (1979), Jaime Humberto Hermosillo's Maria de mi corazón (1979), and Arturo Ripstein's El coronel no tiene quien le escriba (1998). British director Mike Newell ( Four Weddings and

1976-571: The Liberals were defeated in the presidential election held the same year. The Liberal Party suffered a major split in the lead-up to the 2002 elections. Horacio Serpa Uribe , the party's unsuccessful 1998 presidential candidate was nominated to run again. However Álvaro Uribe , a former senator and governor from the party launched an independent presidential campaign, backed by the Conservatives and dissident Liberals. Whereas Serpa supported

2052-493: The National Front agreement in 1974, the Liberal Party dominated Colombian politics until 2002; Liberal candidates won five of the seven Presidential elections and the party was the largest in both the Chamber of Representatives and Senate throughout the entire period. In the 1994 election the Liberal Party's Ernesto Samper was narrowly elected president. Immediately afterwards he was accused of accepting millions from

2128-548: The Patriarch has much more of him than anyone else. After Autumn of the Patriarch was published García Márquez and his family moved from Barcelona to Mexico City and García Márquez pledged not to publish again until the Chilean Dictator Augusto Pinochet was deposed. All the same, he published Chronicle of a Death Foretold while Pinochet was still in power, as he "could not remain silent in

2204-528: The Tale , was published in November 2003. October 2004 brought the publication of a novel, Memories of My Melancholy Whores ( Memoria de mis putas tristes ), a love story that follows the romance of a 90-year-old man and a child forced into prostitution. Memories of My Melancholy Whores caused controversy in Iran, where it was banned after an initial 5,000 copies were printed and sold. Critics often describe

2280-416: The Time of Cholera (1985). His works have achieved significant critical acclaim and widespread commercial success, most notably for popularizing a literary style known as magic realism , which uses magical elements and events in otherwise ordinary and realistic situations. Some of his Works are set in the fictional village of Macondo (mainly inspired by his birthplace, Aracataca ), and most of them explore

2356-441: The actual events remains beyond the point of departure and the structure. The character of Santiago Nasar is based on a good friend from García Márquez's childhood, Cayetano Gentile Chimento. The plot of the novel revolves around Santiago Nasar's murder. The narrator acts as a detective, uncovering the events of the murder as the novel proceeds. Pelayo notes that the story "unfolds in an inverted fashion. Instead of moving forward...

Gabriel García Márquez - Misplaced Pages Continue

2432-405: The antipathy it provoked among party members and liberal leaders. In the rural area, Gaitanism faced a bloody repression to which its scrupulous respect for legality did not prepare it: 15,000 militants were murdered between 1945 and 1948 by death squads supposedly close to the conservatives. Gaitán himself, who was a likely winner of the next presidential election, was assassinated in 1948. After

2508-411: The author of the poem, which was determined to be the work of a Mexican ventriloquist. He stated that 2005 "was the first [year] in my life in which I haven't written even a line. With my experience, I could write a new novel without any problems, but people would realise my heart wasn't in it." In May 2008 it was announced that García Márquez was finishing a new "novel of love" that had yet to be given

2584-433: The child's first experience with death by following his stream of consciousness. The book reveals the perspective of Isabel, the Colonel's daughter, which provides a feminine point of view. In Evil Hour ( La mala hora ), García Márquez's second novel, was published in 1962. Its formal structure is based on novels such as Virginia Woolf 's Mrs Dalloway . The narrative begins on the saint's day of St Francis of Assisi, but

2660-558: The civil war period known as La Violencia , after which they established the " National Front ", agreeing to rotate power, intercalating for a period of four presidential terms. The election victory of independent candidate Álvaro Uribe in 2002 put an end to dominance of two party politics in Colombia . Currently, the Liberal Party is the largest party in Congress and supported the left-wing presidency of Gustavo Petro until leaving Petro's coalition on 28 November 2023. The party

2736-453: The country. García Márquez's political and ideological views were shaped by his grandfather's stories. In an interview, García Márquez told his friend Plinio Apuleyo Mendoza , "my grandfather the Colonel was a Liberal. My political ideas probably came from him to begin with because, instead of telling me fairy tales when I was young, he would regale me with horrifying accounts of the last civil war that free-thinkers and anti-clerics waged against

2812-713: The critics build theories around that and they see things I hadn't seen. I only respond to our way of life, the life of the Caribbean. Hispanic literature Too Many Requests If you report this error to the Wikimedia System Administrators, please include the details below. Request from 172.68.168.237 via cp1104 cp1104, Varnish XID 210699515 Upstream caches: cp1104 int Error: 429, Too Many Requests at Thu, 28 Nov 2024 07:40:10 GMT Colombian Liberal Party The Colombian Liberal Party ( Spanish : Partido Liberal Colombiano ; PLC )

2888-438: The death of the greatest Colombian of all time". The former Colombian president Álvaro Uribe Vélez said: "Master García Márquez, thanks forever, millions of people in the planet fell in love with our nation fascinated with your lines." At the time of his death, García Márquez had a wife and two sons. García Márquez was cremated at a private family ceremony in Mexico City. On 22 April the presidents of Colombia and Mexico attended

2964-508: The dictator novel until 1975 when it was published in Spain. According to García Márquez, the novel is a "poem on the solitude of power" as it follows the life of an eternal dictator known as the General. The novel is developed through a series of anecdotes related to the life of the General, which do not appear in chronological order. Although the exact location of the story is not pin-pointed in

3040-580: The dictionary, took him to the circus each year, and was the first to introduce his grandson to ice—a "miracle" found at the United Fruit Company store. He would also occasionally tell his young grandson "You can't imagine how much a dead man weighs", reminding him that there was no greater burden than to have killed a man, a lesson that García Márquez would later integrate into his novels. García Márquez's grandmother, Doña Tranquilina Iguarán Cotes, played an influential role in his upbringing. He

3116-528: The face of injustice and repression." The Incredible and Sad Tale of Innocent Eréndira and Her Heartless Grandmother ( Spanish : La increíble y triste historia de la cándida Eréndira y de su abuela desalmada ) presents the story of a young mulatto girl who dreams of freedom, but cannot escape the reach of her avaricious grandmother. Eréndira and her grandmother make an appearance in an earlier novel, One Hundred Years of Solitude . The Incredible and Sad Tale of Innocent Eréndira and Her Heartless Grandmother

Gabriel García Márquez - Misplaced Pages Continue

3192-493: The films Tiempo de morir (1966), (1985) and Un señor muy viejo con unas alas enormes (1988), as well as the television series Amores difíciles (1991). García Márquez originally wrote his Eréndira as a third screenplay, but this version was lost and replaced by the novella. Nonetheless, he worked on rewriting the script in collaboration with Ruy Guerra , and the film was released in Mexico in 1983. Several of his stories have inspired other writers and directors. In 1987,

3268-485: The former minister for education Maruja Pachón Castro and Colombian diplomat Luis Alberto Villamizar Cárdenas , both of whom were among the many victims of Pablo Escobar's attempt to pressure the government to stop his extradition by committing a series of kidnappings, murders and terrorist actions. In 2002 García Márquez published the memoir Vivir para contarla , the first of a projected three-volume autobiography. Edith Grossman 's English translation, Living to Tell

3344-559: The great living authors, the one who is closest to everyday reality." García Márquez was one of the original founders of QAP , a Colombian newscast that aired between 1992 and 1997. He was attracted to the project by the promise of editorial and journalistic independence. García Márquez met Mercedes Barcha while she was at school; he was 12 and she was 9. When he was sent to Europe as a foreign correspondent, Mercedes waited for him to return to Barranquilla. Finally, they married in 1958. The following year, their first son, Rodrigo García , now

3420-1258: The informal group of writers and journalists known as the Barranquilla Group , an association that provided great motivation and inspiration for his literary career. He worked with inspirational figures such as Ramon Vinyes, whom García Márquez depicted as an Old Catalan who owns a bookstore in One Hundred Years of Solitude . At this time, García Márquez was also introduced to the works of writers such as Virginia Woolf and William Faulkner . Faulkner's narrative techniques, historical themes and use of rural locations influenced many Latin American authors. From 1954 to 1955, García Márquez spent time in Bogotá and regularly wrote for Bogotá's El Espectador . From 1956, he spent two years in Europe, returning to marry Mercedes Barcha in Barranquilla in 1958, and to work on magazines in Caracas , Venezuela. García Márquez

3496-586: The irrefutable truth. It was a deadpan style that, some thirty years later, heavily influenced her grandson's most popular novel, One Hundred Years of Solitude . After arriving at Sucre , it was decided that García Márquez should start his formal education and he was sent to an internship in Barranquilla , a port on the mouth of the Río Magdalena . There, he gained a reputation of being a timid boy who wrote humorous poems and drew humorous comic strips. Serious and little interested in athletic activities, he

3572-734: The language that García Márquez's imagination produces as visual or graphic, and he himself explains each of his stories is inspired by "a visual image," so it comes as no surprise that he had a long and involved history with film. He was a film critic, he founded and served as executive director of the Film Institute in Havana, was the head of the Latin American Film Foundation, and wrote several screenplays. For his first script he worked with Carlos Fuentes on Juan Rulfo's El gallo de oro . His other screenplays include

3648-483: The man, but he kept coming back, and it was obvious their daughter was committed to him. Her family finally capitulated and gave her permission to marry him (The tragicomic story of their courtship would later be adapted and recast as Love in the Time of Cholera .) Since García Márquez's parents were more or less strangers to him for the first few years of his life, his grandparents influenced his early development very strongly. His grandfather, whom he called "Papalelo",

3724-706: The many accolades the book received, García Márquez tended to downplay its success. He once remarked: "Most critics don't realize that a novel like One Hundred Years of Solitude is a bit of a joke, full of signals to close friends, and so, with some pre-ordained right to pontificate they take on the responsibility of decoding the book and risk making terrible fools of themselves." This was one of his most famous works. After writing One Hundred Years of Solitude García Márquez returned to Europe, this time bringing along his family, to live in Barcelona , Spain, for seven years. The international recognition García Márquez earned with

3800-539: The murders that follow are far from the saint's message of peace. The story interweaves characters and details from García Márquez's other writings such as Artificial Roses , and comments on literary genres such as whodunnit detective stories. Some of the characters and situations found in In Evil Hour re-appear in One Hundred Years of Solitude . From when he was 18, García Márquez had wanted to write

3876-487: The novel, the imaginary country is situated somewhere in the Caribbean. García Márquez gave his own explanation of the plot: My intention was always to make a synthesis of all the Latin American dictators, but especially those from the Caribbean. Nevertheless, the personality of Juan Vicente Gomez [of Venezuela] was so strong, in addition to the fact that he exercised a special fascination over me, that undoubtedly

SECTION 50

#1732779610161

3952-445: The ongoing idea of negotiations with FARC, Uribe advocated confronting the guerrillas. Uribe was victorious in the elections , securing a majority in the first round. In the aftermath, the "Government endorsed" leadership of the party continued to oppose Uribe's administration, but many senators and representatives supported the government, becoming known as the "Uribist" faction. As a compromise, former president César Gaviria Trujillo

4028-468: The period known as La Violencia the Liberals and the Conservative Party reached an agreement to share power from 1958 to 1974 in the so-called National Front agreement that followed the fall of General Gustavo Rojas Pinilla . Nowadays there are many critics of the 16-year agreement but it greatly reduced the intensity of the violent political warfare that preceded it. Following the end of

4104-526: The plot moves backward." Chronicle of a Death Foretold was published in 1981, the year before García Márquez was awarded the 1982 Nobel Prize in Literature. The novel was also adapted into a film by Italian director Francesco Rosi in 1987. Love in the Time of Cholera ( El amor en los tiempos del cólera ) was first published in 1985. It is considered a non-traditional love story as "lovers find love in their 'golden years'—in their seventies, when death

4180-554: The president of Colombia, called him "the greatest Colombian who ever lived." Gabriel García Márquez was born on 6 March 1927 in the small town of Aracataca , in the Caribbean region of Colombia , to Gabriel Eligio García and Luisa Santiaga Márquez Iguarán. Soon after García Márquez was born, his father became a pharmacist and moved with his wife to the nearby large port city of Barranquilla , leaving young Gabriel in Aracataca. He

4256-549: The publication of the novel led to his ability to act as a facilitator in several negotiations between the Colombian government and the guerrillas, including the former 19th of April Movement (M-19), and the current FARC and ELN organizations. The popularity of his writing also led to friendships with powerful leaders, including one with former Cuban president Fidel Castro , which has been analyzed in Gabo and Fidel: Portrait of

4332-432: The theme of solitude . He is the most-translated Spanish-language author. "He was the fourth Latin American to be so honored, having been preceded by Chilean poets Gabriela Mistral in 1945 and Pablo Neruda in 1971 and by Guatemalan novelist Miguel Ángel Asturias in 1967. With Jorge Luis Borges, García Márquez is the best-known Latin American writer in history." Upon García Márquez's death in April 2014, Juan Manuel Santos ,

4408-514: The travel ban and cited One Hundred Years of Solitude as his favorite novel. García Márquez was inspired to write a dictator novel when he witnessed the flight of Venezuelan dictator Marcos Pérez Jiménez . He said, "it was the first time we had seen a dictator fall in Latin America." García Márquez began writing Autumn of the Patriarch ( El otoño del patriarca ) in 1968 and said it was finished in 1971; however, he continued to embellish

4484-502: Was a Liberal veteran of the Thousand Days War . The Colonel was considered a hero by Colombian Liberals and was highly respected. He was well known for his refusal to remain silent about the banana massacres that took place the year after García Márquez was born. The Colonel, whom García Márquez described as his "umbilical cord with history and reality", was also an excellent storyteller. He taught García Márquez lessons from

4560-635: Was a "committed leftist" throughout his life, adhering to socialist beliefs. In 1991, he published Changing the History of Africa , an admiring study of Cuban activities in the Angolan Civil War and the larger South African Border War . He maintained a close but "nuanced" friendship with Fidel Castro , praising the achievements of the Cuban Revolution but criticizing aspects of governance and working to "soften [the] roughest edges" of

4636-410: Was a series of 14 news articles in which he revealed the hidden story of how a Colombian Navy vessel's shipwreck "occurred because the boat contained a badly stowed cargo of contraband goods that broke loose on the deck." García Márquez compiled this story through interviews with a young sailor who survived the wreck. In response to this controversy, El Espectador sent García Márquez away to Europe to be

SECTION 60

#1732779610161

4712-548: Was announced that the novel, whose English title was to be Until August , would be released posthumously in 2024. The book was published posthumously on the 97th anniversary of his birth, 6 March 2024, against Márquez's own wishes that the manuscript be destroyed after his death. In December 2008 García Márquez told fans at the Guadalajara book fair that writing had worn him out. In 2009, responding to claims by both his literary agent and his biographer that his writing career

4788-430: 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. It is a lesser known fact that Gabriel had

4864-552: Was burned. García Márquez transferred to the Universidad de Cartagena and began working as a reporter of El Universal . In 1950, he ended his legal studies to focus on journalism and moved again to Barranquilla to work as a columnist and reporter in the newspaper El Heraldo . Universities, including Columbia University in the City of New York , have given him an honorary doctorate in writing. García Márquez began his career as

4940-523: Was called El Viejo by his classmates. He attended a Jesuit college to study law. After his graduation in 1947, García Márquez stayed in Bogotá to study law at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia , but spent most of his spare time reading fiction. He was inspired by La metamorfosis by Franz Kafka , at the time incorrectly thought to have been translated by Jorge Luis Borges . His first published work, "La tercera resignación", appeared in

5016-507: Was dedicated to Jomí García Ascot and María Luisa Elío. The story chronicles several generations of the Buendía family from the time they founded the fictional South American village of Macondo , through their trials and tribulations, and instances of incest, births, and deaths. The history of Macondo is often generalized by critics to represent rural towns throughout Latin America or at least near García Márquez's native Aracataca . The novel

5092-527: Was elected party leader in 2005. At the 2006 legislative election , the Liberals lost around half their seats. While they remained the largest party in the Chamber of Representatives, they finished third in the Senate. Horacio Serpa was again nominated as the Liberal candidate for the subsequent presidential elections of 28 May 2006 and won 11.84% of the popular vote, placing him third, the worst ever result for

5168-492: Was first published in 1996. It examines a series of related kidnappings and narcoterrorist actions committed in the early 1990s in Colombia by the Medellín Cartel , a drug cartel founded and operated by Pablo Escobar . The text recounts the kidnapping, imprisonment, and eventual release of prominent figures in Colombia, including politicians and members of the press. The original idea was proposed to García Márquez by

5244-400: Was founded in 1848 and, in opposition to the Colombian Conservative Party , became one of the two main political forces in the country for over a century. The two parties frequently engaged in armed conflict with one another, precipitating several civil wars . In the 1940s, the liberal party turned towards socialism under the influence of the charismatic lawyer Jorge Eliécer Gaitán , despite

5320-427: Was his favorite because he felt that it was the most sincere and spontaneous." All the events of the novella take place in one room, during a half-hour period on Wednesday 12 September 1928. It is the story of an old colonel (similar to García Márquez's own grandfather) who tries to give a proper Christian burial to an unpopular French doctor. The colonel is supported only by his daughter and grandson. The novella explores

5396-492: Was inspired by the way she "treated the extraordinary as something perfectly natural." The house was filled with stories of ghosts and premonitions, omens and portents, all of which were studiously ignored by her husband. According to García Márquez, she was "the source of the magical, superstitious and supernatural view of reality". He enjoyed his grandmother's unique way of telling stories. No matter how fantastic or improbable her statements, she always delivered them as if they were

5472-460: Was over, he told Colombian newspaper El Tiempo : "Not only is it not true, but the only thing I do is write". In 2012 his brother Jaime announced that García Márquez was suffering from dementia . In April 2014, García Márquez was hospitalized in Mexico. He had infections in his lungs and his urinary tract, and was suffering from dehydration . He was responding well to antibiotics. Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto wrote on Twitter, "I wish him

5548-458: Was published in 1972. The novella was adapted to the 1983 art film Eréndira , directed by Ruy Guerra . Chronicle of a Death Foretold ( Crónica de una muerte anunciada ), which literary critic Ruben Pelayo called a combination of journalism, realism and detective story, is inspired by a real-life murder that took place in Sucre , Colombia, in 1951, but García Márquez maintained that nothing of

5624-503: Was raised by his maternal grandparents, Doña Tranquilina Iguarán and Colonel Nicolás Ricardo Márquez Mejía. In December 1936, his father took him and his brother to Sincé . However, when his grandfather died in March 1937, the family moved first (back) to Barranquilla and then on to Sucre , where his father started a pharmacy. When his parents had fallen in love, their relationship was met with resistance from Luisa Santiaga Márquez's father,

5700-411: Was reported that García Márquez had a daughter, Indira Cato, from an extramarital affair with Mexican writer Susana Cato in the early 1990s. Indira is a documentary producer in Mexico City. Leaf Storm ( La Hojarasca ) is García Márquez's first novella and took seven years to find a publisher, finally being published in 1955. García Márquez notes that "of all that he had written (as of 1973), Leaf Storm

5776-597: Was widely popular and led to García Márquez's Nobel Prize as well as the Rómulo Gallegos Prize in 1972. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982. William Kennedy has called it "the first piece of literature since the Book of Genesis that should be required reading for the entire human race," and hundreds of articles and books of literary critique have been published in response to it. Despite

#160839