El seis de marzo/March 6th
¡Feliz cumpleaños a ... Gabriel García Márquez! (1927-April 17, 2014)
"No writer in the world has had a comparable impact in the last half century... No writer since Dickens was so widely read, and so deeply loved, as Gabriel Gárcia Márquez," wrote Salmon Rushdie in an essay for the New York Times in 2014, after Márquez's death. The President of Colombia at the time, Juan Manuel Santos, called him "The greatest Colombian who ever lived." "Gabo," as he was known to many, was the author of more than 25 novels, short story collections, novellas, and works of non-fiction, as well as the screenwriter for more than 25 films. He published his autobigraphy, Vivir para contarla (Living to Tell The Tale), in 2002 after realizing that his health was declining.
Born in Aracataca, Colombia in 1927, Márquez was raised for the first ten years of his life by his maternal grandparents, who had a great influence on him. His grandfather, a veteran of the 1000 Days War, was considered a hero by Liberal Colombians, and he refused to stay silent about the Banana Massacres that took place the year after Gabo was born (some 1000 workers for the United Fruit Company striking for better working conditions were killed by the Colombian military after the threat of U.S. intervention). Gabo's grandfather also took him for the first time to see ice, a "miracle" available only at the United Fruit Company store (and part of the first line of Gabo's best-known work, One Hundred Years of Solitude). Márquez's grandmother often told him stories, mixing the supernatural with the everyday, and was thus part of his embrace of "magical realism," the style of writing he is best known for. His parents, who had moved to open a pharmacy in another town, returned when he was ten years old. Nicknamed "El Viejo" in school because of his serious and solitary nature (no sports for him), Gabo always loved writing but began to study law in part to please his father. He nonetheless left his law studies before graduating in order to pursue journalism. He married Mercedes Barcha in 1958 and had a son, Rodrigo, the next year. The family travelled through the southern United States in a Greyhound bus in 1961, as Gabo wanted to see the land that has inspired Faulkner's writings, which in turn had inspired him. They then settled in Mexico City. Another son, Gonzalo, was born soon after. Gabo scraped together a living as a journalist. He had published a novella, Hojaresca (The Leaf Storm), in 1955 after searching for a publisher for seven years, but he still did not have commercial success. That would come with the publication of One Hundred Years of Solitude in 1967. As the story goes, Gabo had long wanted to write a novel based on his childhood town, Aracataca, and his grandparents' stories, but he had not yet figured out the right way to do so. He was driving with his family to Acapulco when the idea came to him, and he turned the car around to return home and start writing. He sold the car for money for his family to live on while he wrote. That book, which has sold more than 30 million copies, is "the first piece of literature since the Book of Genesis that should be required reading for the entire human race," according to writer William Kennedy. Gabo continued writing and won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1982. His legacy lives on. Even today, as I write this, Gabo is being honored with the Google Doodle of the Day on what would have been his 91st birthday. ¡Viva Gabriel! As he said himself, "Life is the best thing that has ever been invented."
For resources for teaching Spanish, Level 1 through AP, CLICK HERE.
Other Sources:
Salmon Rushdie's 2014 tribute to Márquez, Magic in Service of Truth, in The New York Times.
Márquez's obituary in The L.A. Times.
Márquez's profile on the Nobel Prize official site.
The 2014 video The Legacy of Gabriel Gárcia Márquez on CNN.
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| Photo from The Paris Review, accompanying a 1981 interview with Gabo about his life and writing, one year before he won the Nobel Prize in Literature. Click HERE. |
Born in Aracataca, Colombia in 1927, Márquez was raised for the first ten years of his life by his maternal grandparents, who had a great influence on him. His grandfather, a veteran of the 1000 Days War, was considered a hero by Liberal Colombians, and he refused to stay silent about the Banana Massacres that took place the year after Gabo was born (some 1000 workers for the United Fruit Company striking for better working conditions were killed by the Colombian military after the threat of U.S. intervention). Gabo's grandfather also took him for the first time to see ice, a "miracle" available only at the United Fruit Company store (and part of the first line of Gabo's best-known work, One Hundred Years of Solitude). Márquez's grandmother often told him stories, mixing the supernatural with the everyday, and was thus part of his embrace of "magical realism," the style of writing he is best known for. His parents, who had moved to open a pharmacy in another town, returned when he was ten years old. Nicknamed "El Viejo" in school because of his serious and solitary nature (no sports for him), Gabo always loved writing but began to study law in part to please his father. He nonetheless left his law studies before graduating in order to pursue journalism. He married Mercedes Barcha in 1958 and had a son, Rodrigo, the next year. The family travelled through the southern United States in a Greyhound bus in 1961, as Gabo wanted to see the land that has inspired Faulkner's writings, which in turn had inspired him. They then settled in Mexico City. Another son, Gonzalo, was born soon after. Gabo scraped together a living as a journalist. He had published a novella, Hojaresca (The Leaf Storm), in 1955 after searching for a publisher for seven years, but he still did not have commercial success. That would come with the publication of One Hundred Years of Solitude in 1967. As the story goes, Gabo had long wanted to write a novel based on his childhood town, Aracataca, and his grandparents' stories, but he had not yet figured out the right way to do so. He was driving with his family to Acapulco when the idea came to him, and he turned the car around to return home and start writing. He sold the car for money for his family to live on while he wrote. That book, which has sold more than 30 million copies, is "the first piece of literature since the Book of Genesis that should be required reading for the entire human race," according to writer William Kennedy. Gabo continued writing and won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1982. His legacy lives on. Even today, as I write this, Gabo is being honored with the Google Doodle of the Day on what would have been his 91st birthday. ¡Viva Gabriel! As he said himself, "Life is the best thing that has ever been invented."
For resources for teaching Spanish, Level 1 through AP, CLICK HERE.
Other Sources:
Salmon Rushdie's 2014 tribute to Márquez, Magic in Service of Truth, in The New York Times.
Márquez's obituary in The L.A. Times.
Márquez's profile on the Nobel Prize official site.
The 2014 video The Legacy of Gabriel Gárcia Márquez on CNN.
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