Gabriel García Márquez
(b. 1928)

As one of the finest contemporary Latin American writers, Gabriel García Márquez has contributed greatly to defining the genre of magical realism. He spent his early childhood growing up with his grandparents in the coastal village of Aracataca, listening to folklore and tales that would later resurface in his work. After graduating from college, García Márquez worked mainly in editing until 1955, when the novella Leaf Storm was published and captured the attention of critics and readers alike.

His fame grew steadily with other short stories but was indisputably established with the masterpiece One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967). This story depicts the lives of five generations of one family who lived in the fictional village of Macondo. Based on his hometown, Macondo symbolically represents most any village in Colombia, let alone in South America. Renowned Chilean poet Pablo Neruda remarked that One Hundred Years of Solitude was "the greatest revelation in the Spanish language since the Don Quixote of Cervantes." Others would tend to agree as García Márquez received the Nobel Prize for Literature for this work in 1982.

García Márquez's style is gripping as it blends historical, political, and social reality with elements of imagination and fantasy. His impact on other writers, most markedly Isabel Allende, and his brilliance at storytelling have assured his foremost place in literary history.

A  |  B  |  C  |  D  |  E  |  F  |  G  |  H  |  I  |  J  |  K  |  L  |  M
N  |  O  |  P  |  Q  |  R  |  S  |  T  |  U  |  V  |  W  |  X  |  Y  |  Z