Noticias
Eighty nine years of his birthday on March 6th
"My first and only vocation is journalism": Gabriel García Márquez
March 05, 2016"There is no García Márquez but the journalist", said the author of emblematic books like Cien años de soledad (One hundred years of solitude), El otoño del patriarca (The autumn of the patriarch), Crónica de una muerte anunciada (Chronicle of a death foretold), La hojarasca (Leaf storm), El amor en los tiempos del cólera (Love in the time of cholera), El general en su laberinto (The general in his labyrinth), El coronel no tiene quien le escriba (No one writes to the colonel), among many other novels of the storyteller, novelist, journalist and screenwriter, awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982.
The Colombian writer, born in Aracataca, Colombia, on March 6, 1927 and deceased in Mexico City on April 17, 2014, said about his books that, "what changes is the development, the treatment of the material. But, let's say, the ways of approaching reality are the essence of the journalist. In my case it is the same: both to literature, politics and journalism. Then I consider my first and only vocation is journalism. "
He said that he wanted to be a journalist in an interview in 1976. He spent his childhood with his grandparents: Colonel Márquez, an excellent storyteller who was his umbilical cord with history and reality and Tranquilina Iguarán an imaginative and superstitious woman who filled the house with stories of ghosts, premonitions, omens and signs.
Although he studied law which reaffirmed his vocation as a writer, he published his first story, La tercera resignación (The third resignation) in the newspaper El Espectador in Colombia in 1947. Later, he worked as a reporter in Colombian newspapers like El Universal and El Heraldo and was correspondent in Paris and New York.
His literary career began with a short novel, La hojarasca (Leaf Storm) (1955), which story takes place in the mythical and legendary town of Macondo, created by the author. In 1961 he published El coronel no tiene quien le escriba (No one writes to the colonel) and a year later, he gathered some stories under the title of Los funerales de mamá grande (Big Mama's Funeral) and published his novel, La mala hora (The bad time).
In the early sixties, he came to Mexico where he took up residence and was in our country, where he could write his great novel, one in which everything happened and had been pending for 18 years.
"In late 1964 I was going to Acapulco, with Mercedes and my two children and then, I found as a revelation, exactly the tone I needed. And that was to tell things as my grandmother did. Because I remember that my grandmother told the most fantastic things, in a so natural tone, so simple, that was completely convincing. And then I did not arrive to Acapulco. I went back and sat down to write, 100 años de soledad (One Hundred Years of Solitude). "
With this novel, success came to García Márquez in 1967 when he was 40 years old. Immediately, the book was translated into 24 languages and won four international awards. Even, the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda would say "is the best novel ever written in Castilian after Don Quixote."
The magical realist style of Cien años de soledad (One hundred years of solitude) tells the legendary multi-generational story of the Buendía family in the village of Macondo: an imaginary territory where the improbable and magical is no less real than the everyday and logical.
Thus, the Colombian author is the first included in the literary Latin American Boom of the 1960's and 1970's with Argentine Jorge Luis Borges and Julio Cortázar, the Peruvian Mario Vargas Llosa and Mexican Juan Rulfo and Carlos Fuentes.
Then other books came like El otoño del patriarca (The Autumn of the Patriarch) (1975), which would be the favorite novel of the writer; the stories, La increíble historia de la cándida Eréndira y de su abuela desalamada (The Incredible and Sad Tale of Innocent Eréndira and Her Heartless Grandmother) (1977) and Crónica de una muerte anunciada (Chronicle of a Death Foretold) (1981), considered by many as his second masterpiece.
Gabriel García Márquez received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982 "for his novels and short stories, in which fantasy and reality combine in a rich world of imagination, reflecting the life and conflicts of a continent", the Swedish Academy said.
In this regard, Juan Rulfo said that "for the first time after many years a fair award of literature has been given", while Carlos Fuentes emphasized that García Márquez had achieved one of the greatest characteristics of modern fiction: the release of time, allowing to recreate himself the human being and his time.
The Colombian received the prize, competing with British Graham Greene and German Günter Grass, dressed in a white linen suit "liquiliqui”, the same one his grandfather wore and in his speech, La soledad de América Latina (The solitude of Latin America) complained the lack of attention of the powers to Latin America.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez also wrote plays, Diatriba de amor para un hombre sentado (Diatribe of love against a seated man (1987) and was a film passionate, where he participated in 1954 in the short film, La langosta azul (The blue lobster). He made the adaptations of films like, El gallo de oro (The Golden Cockerel), Tiempo de morir (Time to die) and Edipo Alcalde and was scriptwriter of films, En este pueblo no hay ladrones (There Are no thieves in this village), Juego peligroso (Dangerous game), Patsy, mi amor (Patsy, my love) and Presagio (Omen).
His literary activity continued with books like, Amor en los tiempos del cólera (Love in the time of cholera) (1987), El general en su laberinto (The General in His Labyrinth) (1989), Doce peregrinos (Strange Pilgrims) (1992), Del amor y otros demonios (Of Love and Other Demons) (1994), Noticias de un secuestro (News of a Kidnapping) (1997). García Márquez published his memoirs, Vivir para contarla (Living to tell the tale) in 2002 and the novel, Memorias de mis putas tristes (Memories of my melancholy whores), which caused a great commotion in addressing a romance between a 90 year old man and a teenager.
In 2005, the author decided to take a sabbatical. In February 2006, he noted in an interview, of the few granted: "I have not written a line. And besides, I have no project nor prospects of having it. I had never stopped writing, this has been the first year of my life that I have not” and that is, “I found a fantastic thing: stay in bed reading! " he revealed.
The Colombian writer died on April 17, 2014 at his home in Mexico City. He was honored a tribute at the Palace of Fine Arts, which was painted of One hundred years of solitude, vallenato* and yellow butterflies, with the presence of Secretary of Culture, Rafael Tovar y de Teresa, and the presidents of Mexico and Colombia, Enrique Peña Nieto and Juan Manuel Santos.
*Vallenato: Typical music of some Colombian regions. (Translator’s Note)
Mexico,Distrito Federal
