Gabriel García Márquez

García Márquez is the primary and most excellent of the writers of the Generation of the Boom who promote Magical Realism (lo real maravilloso). His distinct tendencies are: historicity, temporal and spatial transpositions, cultural simultaneity, imagination leading to fantasy; stylistic and structural innovation and experimentation. In short, he fuses verosimilitud with what appears to be fantastic--but fantastic only for an audience not accustomed with the extraordinary (maravilloso) nature of Latin American life, history, and reality.

(Note: Bold type represents universal masterpieces.)

1927 6 March: Gabriel José García Márquez born in Aracataca, Colombia (Magdalena province). Mother: Luisa Santiaga Márquez; father, Gabriel Eligio García…, telegraph operator, then homeopathist.

Lived with grandparents: el coronel Nicolás Márquez Iguarán (Papalelo) and his grandmother, Tranquilina Iguarán Cotes; GGM's grandparents arrived in Aracataca when the United Fruit Co. began banana operations there.

1936 Grandfather dies.

Gabriel (Gabo) moved to Barranquilla, where his father tried to set up a pharmacy, but failed; he began school in Barranquilla.

1936-19xx Period of family poverty.

1939 Suffers malaria and is male head of house when he father leaves to find work away from Baranquilla; mother and seven syblings depend on him.

GGM: self-described timid youth.

Influential authors: William Faulkner, Rómulo Gallegos, Las mil y una noches, Robinso Crusoe, La isla del tesoro, El conde de Montecristo. Don Quijote (he read it while doing his "necessities" on the toilet).

1946 Finishes his “bachillerato” and fails to finish writing his first novel.

1947-1954 Studies law and lives as journalist in México, France and Spain.

1947 Enrolls in School of Law and Political Science in National University in Bogotá.

Publishes his first short story: “La tercera resignación”.

1949 Moves to Cartagena.

Writes for newspaper El Universal

Studies law; then quits university studies against parents' wishes.

Gains reputation as writer on Colombia’s Atlantic coast.

1950 Moves to Barranquilla; writes column for El Universal; meets writers; uses pseudonym “Séptimus”.

On trip to Aracataca with mother, GGM rediscovers Macondo, a United Fruit Co. banana plantation near Aracataca.

1951 Writes as newspaper stringer for the daily El Heraldo (Baranquilla)

Literary friends (y los de parranda): Germán Vargas Cantillo, Alfonso Fuenmayor, Álvaro Cepeda Samudio, Meira Delmar.

Autores favoritos: Jorge Luis Borges, Julio Cortázar, Felisberto Hernández, Arturo Barrea.

Writes La hojarasca (Leaf Storm).

1954 Returns to Bogotá: writes for newspaper, El Espectador.

1955 Publishes La hojarasca.

Publishes story: “Isabel viendo llover en Macondo” (source for 100 años de soledad).

Associates with Communist Party.

Travels to Geneva, Rome, and Paris.

Enrolls in film school in Rome.

Dictator Rojas Pinilla closes newspaper El Espectador.

1956 Finishes writing El coronel no tiene quien le escriba.

1957 Travels through eastern Europe (behind Iron Curtain).

Publishes articles on “90 Days Behind the Iron Curtain”

Travels to London.

Travels to Caracas, where he lives in exile and writes for Momento.

1958 Publishes El coronel no tiene quien le escriba (1^st novel)

Writes for Elite and Venezuela Gráfic.a

Joins revolt against dictator Pérez Jiménez.

Marries Mercedes Barcha.

1959 Travels to Cuba.

Returns to Bogotá as correspondant for Prensa Latina (Cuban press organization).

1960 Returns to Cuba.

1961 Travels to NY as reporter; resigns from Prensa Latina; moves to México City.

Receives literary prize for La mala hora (The Evil Hour)

1962 Second child born: Gonzalo.

Publishes Los funerales de la mamá grande and La mala hora.

1963 Joins public relations firm of Walter Thompson.

Writes filmscripts (the first is based on story by Juan Rulfo: “The Golden Rooster”).

1965 Writes many filmscripts.

Befriends Carlos Fuentes and Juan Rulfo in México City.

1965-1967 Writes Cien años de soledad.

1967 (June) Publishes Cien años de soledad (2^nd novel) in Buenos Aires. With this novel García Márquez assures his place as the premier Latin American writer of "magical realism" and the writers of the "new novel" in the "Generación del Boom".

Wins Rómulo Gallegos Prize in Caracas.

Meets Vargas Llosa. They are friends until the 1980's, when García Márquez maintains his progressive sociopolitical views while Vargas Llosa becomes a neo-liberal.

(October) Moves his family permanently to Barcelona (1967-1975); lives on Caponata Street in Sarriá; he befriends many Spanish writers including Carlos Barral, the great publisher (Seix-Barral).

Now GGM is world famous:

1970 Publishes collection of articles: Relato de un náufrago.

1971 Honorary doctorate from Columbia University (NY).

1972 Literary prize for publication of La increíble y triste historia de la cándida Eréndira y de su abuela desalmada (Innocent Erendira; short stories).

He gives prize over to MAS (socialist movement).

1973 Publishes Venezuelan articles in book form.

1974 Chile, el golpe y los gringos (progressive reportage about Chile and the American involvement in Pinochet's right-wing military golpe de estado)

1975 Publishes El otoño del patriarca.(3^rd novel)

Publishes complete stories from 1947-1975): Todos los cuentos.

Moves family to México City.

1976 Travels to Cuba; becomes more active politically; befriends Fidel Castro.

Publishes new collection of journalistic writing.

1980 Columnist for El Espectador again in Bogotá; writes for El País (Madrid).

1981 Publishes Crónica de una muerte anunciada (Chronicle of a Death Foretold; 4^th novel).

Légion d’Honneur as Commander awarded in France; his friend Pres. François Mitterand invites him to France when Mitterand is elected first socialist president of France.

Alternates living between México and Bogotá.

Accused of being associated with guerrilla movement M-19.

Leaves Colombia with diplomatic protection; lives in self-exile in México.

1982 Receives the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Judge for International Film Festival in Cannes, France.

Publishes screenplay script, El secuestro (guión).

1983 Interviews head of M-19, Jaime Bateman.

Publishes journalistic reportage about Colombian guerrilla war, El asalto: el operativo con el FSLN se lanzó al mundo.

Pres. Belisario Betancur offers him guarantees for safe return to Colombia, to which he returns.

1985 Publishes El amor en tiempos del cólera (5^th novel).

1989 Publishes El general en su laberinto (Mondadori, 287 pp), novel about Simón Bolívar's last days in Colombia.

1992 Doce cuentos peregrinos (short stories from his early career)

1994 Del amor y otros demonios (short stories).

1997 Noticias de un secuestro (first-rate journalistic reportage about a real kidnapping in Colombia

2002 Vivir para contarla (first volume of his autobiography; Mondadori, S.L. and Knopf)

2003-2007 GGM: ill health, lives in Mexico City, writes the final volumes of his autobiography.

2007 International film premiered: Love in the Times of Cholera based on García Márquez's novel of the same name (see: 1985).

2008 English language biography titled Gabriel García Márquez: a Life (642 pp; 2008; Knopf) by Gerald Martin, a British scholar and professor in the Center for Latin American Studies at the University of Pittsburgh. This major biography was reviewed in the New York Times Book Review (June 7, 2009, pp. 1 and 7) by Paul Berman. The review was important but mostly negative. According to the Martin, the key to understanding García Márquez is the latter’s early visit to Aracataca and the author’s immersion in the narrative mode of Magical Realism. Berman disagrees strongly with Martin. Berman thinks García Márquez’ works are rooted in and an extension of traditional Spanish and Latin American baroque modes of thought and style. (I agree more with Berman than with Martin, but you should evaluate both perspectives.)

For a wonderful photo of García Márquez with Carlos Fuentes in 2008, see: => FIL.

2014 GGM died in Mexico City; from Wikipedia: “On 22 April, the presidents of Colombia and Mexico attended a formal ceremony in Mexico City, where Garcia Marquez 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”

Selected Resource Books:

Bibliographic Guide to Gabriel García Márquez, 1986-1992. Compiled by Nelly Sfeir de González. London: Greenwood Press, 1994.

Bell-Villada, Gene H. García Márquez: the Man and his Work. Chapel Hill, North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press, 1990.

Carrillo, Germán Darío. La narrativa de Gabriel García Márquez. Madrid: Ed. Castalia, 1975.

Earle, Peter. Gabriel García Márquez. Madrid: Taurus, 1981.

Giacoman, Helmy. Homenaje a Gabriel García Márquez. New York: Las Américas Pub., 1972.

Martin, Gerald. Gabriel García Márquez: a Life. New York: Knopf, 2008.

Minta, Stephen. García Márquez, Writer of Colombia. New York: Harper and Row, 1987.

Pelayo, Rubén. Gabriel García Márquez: a Critical Companio. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2001.
Stavans, Ilan. Gabriel García Márquez: the Early Years. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.

Vargas Llosa, Mario. Gabriel García Márquez: historia de un deicidio. Barcelona: Barral, 1971.

Wood, Michael. Gabriel García Márquez: One Hundred Years of Solitude. Cambridge, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1990.