Gabriel José De La Concordia García Márquez, History Of A Life

Gabriel José de la Concordia García Márquez, History of a life

Colombian novelist, writer and journalist, Gabriel José de la Concordia García Márquez, known affectionately as Gabo or Gabito, is one of the most admired and recognized authors of Latin American literature. He was born on March 6, 1927 in the municipality of Aracataca, in Magdalena, Colombia and died at 87 on April 17, 2014 in Mexico City. 

When he was a child, his parents transferred him to Barranquilla to live with his maternal grandparents. Instead of telling fairy tales, his grandfather Colonel Nicolás Márquez, a veteran liberal of the War of the Thousand Days, delighted him with horrifying civil war stories that the free and anti -clerical librens fought against the conservative government. These experiences shaped many of the beliefs that one day he would develop and express in his writing.

When he was older, he attended high school in San José since 1940 and finished his baccalaureate at the Liceo de Zipaquirá school on December 12, 1946. Although he did not show much interest in the studies, he enrolled in the Law Faculty at the National University of Bogotá on February 25, 1947. He met Manuel Zapata Olivella, a doctor and writer, who, through his friendship, allowed him to devote himself to journalism. In 1948, he began writing in the Liberal newspaper El Universal after the Bogotazo, the murder of the liberal leader Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, who initiated a period of political discomfort known as violence.

Since 1953, he collaborated in the newspaper of Barranquilla, the National where he began to develop his writing style that was mainly influenced by the Greguerías of Ramón Gómez de la Serna, a rhetorical and stylistic device. In 1955, he published his first novel "La Lelorasca" that demonstrated the first features of magical realism, a characteristic style of his fiction works. With little success, he continued writing and married in Barranquilla in 1958 with Mercedes Barcha, the daughter of a apothecary, and had their first son Rodrigo.

In January 1959, just after the Cuban Revolution, Márquez met Fidel Castro and did not take long to become great friends. Although Márquez adhered to a socialist vision of the world, he sympathizes with the Cuban revolution and, by extension, Fidel Castro who had seen injustices in Latin America and was dedicated to creating a better world. From now on, he never hid to express his sympathy to the Cuban regime in his writing. Through her trips and his friendships, she continued to develop his socialist beliefs and he assured that, one day, the world from which he dreamed would become a reality. In 1961, he settled with his wife and his first son in New York as the correspondent of a Latin press. However, he was forced to move to Mexico City after several pressures and threats he received for the Cuban dissent in the country and by the CIA, formed by his links with Fidel Castro and his political beliefs.

In June 1967, the world would finally learn Garcia’s name through the publication of his novel "Hundred Years of Solitude" which, in a week, sold 8000 copies. His success was insured. In less than three years, his novel went on to sell half a million copies and was translated into more than twenty -four languages. He continued writing novels and received numerous awards and distinctions, the most significant of all, the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982.