As Gabriel García Márquez, “Gabo” as he was often called, cried one morning in 1966 about the death of his famous characters Colonel Aureliano Buendía—the world mourned the death of the Colombian writer on the afternoon of April 17.
Márquez, born on March 6, 1927 in Aracataca, Colombia, died at age 87 in the city of Mexico D.F., his homeland where he had lived since 1961. He led a life devoted to writing, in which he created an imaginary city, received countless awards and applied a strange and fictional reality to everyday life.
One of the most important calls Marquez received came on the morning of Oct. 10, 1982, when at 55-years-old, he became one of the youngest writers to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Márquez’ work is also strongly tied to ‘magical realism’, a literary genre that uses the strange or fictitious to portray everyday life with the intention of transmitting feelings and opinions.
“For me, getting to know his books meant discovering one of the most intense and precise plots in Latin American Literature, it also meant getting to know the man that I was named after,” said Nicaraguan journalist Gabriela Castro.
“I’ve read twelve books. He is credited with a pleasant read, you can easily read two or three books consecutively,” Castro added.
He wrote “One Hundred Years of Solitude”, one of the most important and representative works of Latin American literature. The book’s main character is Colonel Aureliano Buendía, who was inspired by his maternal grandfather Nicholas Mejia with whom Márquez lived with until he was 10-years-old.
After a first attempt at the School of Law, Márquez quickly turned his life to literary and journalistic practice, joining the school of journalism and begin his long, successful and wonderful career with the written word,which began in newspapers like The Bogotano, El Universal and El Heraldo.
He started off as a film critic, and was later granted the opportunity to publish his first story— after which Márquez’s life began to weave its way to his first book “La Hojarasca” (1955).
Georgelin Fernández, a Venezuelan admirer of Marquez’ work describes it as “waking the hunger for literature made on this side.”
”La Hojarasca” being the first of a long list, Gabo wrote titles difficult to forget and will always be a socio-political representation in Latin American literature.” she added.
Some of his memorable work includes “No One Writes to the Colonel” (1957), Evil Hour (1961), “One Hundred Years of Solitude” (1967), “The Autumn of the Patriarch” (1975), “Chronicle of a Death Foretold” ( 1981), “Love in the Time of Cholera” (1985), “The General in His Labyrinth” (1989), “Of Love and Other Demons” (1994), “Memories of My Melancholy Whores” (2004).
Notable for his grand creations—Márquez created Macondo, an imaginary town that the writer mentioned in his works. Macondo shares many similarities to Aracataca, his hometown.
“I was required to read ‘100 Years of Solitude’ in high school, and reread it later, and within my family, Macondo, is place that always comes up, and is not difficult to imagine,” said Fernández.
Many acknowledge the author’s admiration for the Cuban revolution, and his close friendship with the movement’s leader, Fidel Castro. Márquez, a movie fanatic, directed the New Latin American Cinema foundation in 1986, located in Havana, Cuba.
“For me his work is enticing, fresh and above all very Latin American,” describes Duarte. “You connect with the political and historical realism of Latin America.”
An act of homage took place on April 21 at the Palace of Fine Arts in Mexico City, where among many others, the presidents of Mexico and Colombia were in attendance.
Márquez’ ashes will be spread over Colombia, the country that gave birth to the writer, and in Mexico, the country that saw him depart.
Gabriel García Márquez’ work has been translated into over 30 languages and can be found in most of your favorite bookstores and libraries.
