Biography of Gabriel García Márquez

(1927-03-06 - 2014/04/17)

Gabriel García Márquez
Colombian writer

"My twelve years of age I was about to be hit by a bicycle. A father passing saved me with a cry: Beware! The rider fell to the Earth. The curate, without stopping, said: already saw what is the power of the word? That day I knew it. We now know, moreover, that the mayas knew it from the time of Christ, and with much rigor, which had a special for the words God"
He was born on March 6, 1927 in Aracataca, (Colombia).
One of the 16 children of Gabriel Eligio García, Telegraph. Being a child was left in the care of their maternal grandparents, Col. Nicolás Márquez Iguarán - his idol's life - and Tranquilina Iguarán cuts. He recognizes that his mother is who see the characters of his novels through his memories. By having lived retired at the start of his father, it was difficult to treat him with confidence in adolescence; "I never felt safe in front of him, he did not know how to please him. He was of a seriousness that I confused with the misunderstanding,"said Garcia Marquez.
He attended the Colegio San José de Barranquilla. After finishing high school begins to write a novel that initially titled "the House" (by this time lee Franz Kafka and James Joyce. He traveled to Cartagena where he joined the Faculty of law and studied Political science at the National University of Bogota.
In El Espectador , he published his first short story, "the third resignation". He left the law and starts in journalism. He worked during 1946 on the Universal daily newspaper of Cartagena de Indias as Editor. "Eva is inside your cat", "Tubal-Cain forging a star", "another rib of death" he published in El Espectador. Later works for El Heraldo in Barranquilla between 1948 and 1952, and El Espectador in Bogota from 1952. Between 1959 and 1961, he was writing to the Cuban News Agency, La Prensa, in Colombia, Havana and New York.
Their ideal leftists made him deal with the dictator Laureano Gómez and his successor, general Gustavo Rojas Pinilla, problems that led to the voluntary exile in Mexico and Spain between 1960 and 1970. It was in Mexico, during his exile, where he began writing his masterpiece, the novel 'One hundred years of solitude', in a style that shows the influence of the famous American writer William Faulkner. The Colombian writer took his wife to live with his family and he remained 18 months almost without leaving a room which he called "The cave of the Mafia", in their Department. Remained there eating six packs of cigarettes per day. Debts piling up and to resist economically this long period sold his car and nearly all their belongings, including appliances and furnishings of the House. For this work he noticed an advance of only $ 500 and the initial circulation was 8,000 copies.
The fabulous novel tells the epic story of the Buendia family and their generations in the fictional community of Macondo. 'One hundred years of solitude' has become a global literary classic and modern literature of Latin America. Has it been translated into most of the languages and literary languages, and at the same time they have sold more copies of this novel that the of any other Latin American contemporary author. Also author of 'the autumn of the Patriarch' (1975), which is about power and corruption, politicians, 'Chronicle of a death foretold' (1981), novel which tells the story of a murder in a small Latin American city, 'love in the time of cholera' (1985), which is a love story that develops also in Latin America,the general in his Labyrinth' (1989) , fictional account of the last days of Simón Bolívar, and 'news of a kidnapping' (1996), fictionalized on Colombian narco-terrorism report.
He has also written short stories such as 'the incredible and sad history of Erendira and her grandmother the heartless' (1972) and 'twelve Pilgrim tales' (1992). In 2002, García Márquez published the book of memories 'live to tell', the first of the three volumes of his memoirs. It was launched in October 2004 'memories of my melancholy whores ', the story of an old man who made love for the last time to his 90 years and remember all the women that are related.
They awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1982 and he was formally invited by the Colombian Government to return to their country. The life and work of the Nobel Garcia Marquez has been recognized publicly: in 1961 he received the Esso Prize, in 1977, he was honored in the XIII International Congress of Iberoamerican literature; in 1971, declared "Doctor Honoris Causa" by the University of Columbia, in New York; in 1972, won the award Rómulo Gallegos for his work "La Cándida Eréndira and her heartless grandmother". In 1981, the French Government awarded him the Medal "Legion of Honor" in the grade of Grand Commander. He attended the possession of his friend and President of the Republic, François Mitterrand. In 1992, he was appointed jury of the Cannes Film Festival.
In 1958, he married Mercedes Barcha. They had two sons, Rodrigo and Gonzalo.
A lymphatic cancer was diagnosed in 1999. He died on Thursday, April 17, 2014, at the age of 87, in Mexico City. Eight days before he left the hospital where he was admitted for a week by a lung infection. Shortly after it was learned that, in reality, it wasn't a lung problem but a worsening of the cancer that afflicted him and that had spread by lung, lymph nodes, and liver and that was receiving hospice care at home.