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The Big Hundred

Gabriel García Márquez
(1928-)

Latin-American journalist, novelist and short story writer, a central figure in the so-called Magical Realism movement. The term was first used in the 1920s Germany to describe some contemporary painters, whose works expressed surrealistic visions. In the late 1940s the term was applied to literature by Cuban novelist Alejo Carpentier, who recognized the tendency of Latin-American writers to combine fantasy elements and mythology with otherwise realistic fiction. Among magic realists are Jorge Amado, Jorge Luis Borges, Isabel Allende and Julio Cortázar.

García Márquez was born in Aracataca, Colombia. He studied law and journalism at the National University in Bogóta and at the University of Cartagena. In 1948 he started his career as a journalist and worked for the next 10 years in different towns in Latin America and Europe. Márquez was European correspond in Rome and Paris for the newspaper El Espectador in 1955, but lost his post when the newspaper was closed down by the dictator Rojas Pinilla. He was founder of Prensa Latina, a Cuban press agency and worked in Prensa Latina office in Havanna and New York.

In the 1960s Márquez worked as a screenwriter, journalist, and publicist in Mexico City, moved for some years in the 1970s to Barcelona and returned back to Mexico in the later 1970s. In 1982 he went to Columbia.

García Marquez published his first short stories in the 1940s. In 1955 appeared novella LA HOJARASCA, which intoduced to the public fictional Columbian village of Macondo and which since then have been the setting in many of his later works.

In 1982 García Marquez was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. His best known book is CIEN ANOS DE SOLEDAD (1967). It is the history of Macondo, depicted on a epic level, from its mythic foundation to its final disappearance. Combining the world of popular beliefs and the bourgeois family chronicle it explores the limits of narrative fiction and became one of the most popular works of Magical Realism. Marquez's major novels and novellas include EL OTOÑO DEL PATRIARCA (1977), an analysis of dictatorship on mythical and historical level, CRÓNICA DE UNA MUERTE ANUNCIADA (1981), which recounts the murder of a man for allegedly violating the law of honour, EL GENERAL EN SU LABERINTO (1989), which traces Bolívar's final journey down theMagdalena river, and DEL AMOR Y OTROS DEMONIOS (1992), historical novel set in the 18th century Colombia.

SEE ALSO: Finnish writer Juhani Peltonen, English-language magic realists: Salman Rushdie, Brian Aldiss, James P. Blaylock, Peter Carey, Angela Carter, E.L. Doctorow, John Fowles, Mark Helprin, Emma Tennant.

For further reading: Intertextuality in García Márquez by Arnold M. Penuel (1994); Gabriel GarcíaMárquez: a Study of the Short Fiction by Harley D. Oberhelman (1991) Gabriel García Márquez: the Man and His Work by Gene H. Bell-Villas (1990); Gabriel García Márquez and the Invention of America by Carlos Fuentes (1987); Gabriel García Márquez by Raymond L. Williams (1984)

Selected works:

LA HOJARASCA, 1955 - LEAF STORM AND OTHER STORIES
EL COLONEL NO TIENE QUIEN LE ESCRIBA, 1957 - NO ONE WRITES TO THE COLONEL AND OTHER STORIES
LA MALA HORA, 1961 - IN EVIL HOUR
CIEN ANOS DE SOLEDAD, 1967 - ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE
LOS FUNERALES MDE LA MAMÁ GRANDE, 1962 - BIG MAMA'S FUNERAL
LA NOVELA EN AMÉRICA LATINA, 1968 (with Mario Vargas Llosa)
RELATO DE UN NÁUFRAGO, 1970 - THE STORY OF A SHIPWRECKED SAILOR
LA INCREÍBLE Y TRISTE HISTORIA DE LA CÁNDIDA ERENDIRA Y DE SU ABUELA, 1972 - INNOCENT ERENDIRA AND OTHER STORIES
CUANDO ERA FELIZ E INDOCUMENTADO, 1973
EL OTONO DEL PATRIARCA, 1975 - THE AUTUMN OF THE PATRIARCH
DE VIAJE POR LOS PAISES SOCIALISTAS, 1978
CRÓNICAS Y REPORTAJES, 1978
PERIODISMO MILITANTE, 1978
LA BATALLA DE NICARAQUA, 1979 (with Gregoria Selser and DanielWaksman Schinca)
GARCÍA MÁRQUEZ HABLA DE GARCÁ MÁRQUEZ, 1979
CRONICA DE UNA MUERTE ANUNCIADA, 1981 - CHRONICLE OF A DEATH FORETOLD
EL OLOR DE LA GUAYABA, 1982 - THE FRAGRANCE OF GUAVA
LA SOLEDAD SE AMÉRICA LATINA, 1983
EL SECUESTRO, 1982
VIVA SANDINO, 1982
ERÉNDIRA, 1983 (screenplay)
MARÍA DE MI CORAZÓN - MARY MY DEAREST, 1983 (screenplay, with J.H. Hermosillo)
PERSECUTION Y MUERTE DE MINORÍAS, 1984 (with Guillermo Nolasco-Juárez)
EL AMOR EN LOS TIEMPOS DEL CÓLERA, 1985 - LOVE IN THE TIME OF CHOLERA
EL CATACLISMO DE DAMOCLES = THE DOOM OF DAMOCLES, 1986
LA AVENTURA DE MIGUEL LITTIN. CLADESTINO EN CHILE, 1986 - CLANDESTINE IN CHILE: THE ADVENTURES OF MIGUEL LITTÍN
TEXTOS COSTEÑOS, 1987
EL GENERAL EN SU LABERINTO, 1989 - THE GENERAL IN HIS LABYRINTH
DOCE CENTOS PEREGRINOS, 1992 - STRANGE PILGRIMS
DEL AMOR Y OTROS DEMONIOS, 1994 - OF LOVE AND OTHER DEMONS
NOTICIA DE UN SECUESTRO, 1996

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