Dubbed the “magical realist,” Gabriel Garcia Márquez took the world by storm with the release of One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967). Today, his style and voice resonate in the literary world as one of the preeminent writers of the 20th century. Born on March 6, 1927 in Colombia, he is credited for spellbinding work such as Love in the Time of Cholera (adapted into a film in 2007), Autumn of the Patriarch, El Coronel No Tien Quien Le Escriba (No One Writes to the Colonel) and Memories of My Melancholy Whores.
Prior to winning the Nobel Prize in literature in 1982, he studied law at the National University in Bogota and thereafter became a fiercely independent journalist. As a reporter for El Espectador, he caused a furor by writing a 14-part series in 1955 that uncovered a scandal in the Colombian government. He discovered that eight crew members of a Colombian navy destroyer did not die from a storm that swept them overboard but rather from a scheme of “negligence” by a corrupt government. His unbridled pursuit for justice on behalf of the deceased crew and the only survivor made him popular and changed the trajectory of his career.
It is this gusto that fueled El Escandalo del Siglo, released in October 2018 by Vintage Espanol. It features 50 pieces of Marquez’s journalism from the late 1940s-1980s. The English version, Scandal of the Century and Other Writings, will be published this May.
In 2018, No One Writes to the Colonel put his complex style back in the limelight. Adapted into an off Broadway play by Veronica Triana and Jorge Ali Triana, it was performed in Spanish for a six-month run at the Gramercy Arts Theatre (Repertorio Espanol). No One Writes to the Colonel offers the audience both social commentary and satire.
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The highlights the life of a 75-year old colonel and his wife who is at death’s door amidst impoverished conditions. After the demise of their son, the couple is left to fend for themselves while taking care of their prized possession—a rooster—that belonged to their son. Faced with ruin, the retired colonel has no choice but to use the rooster in cockfights to earn a miserable living because the Spanish government did not award them a pension.
Although Márquez drew inspiration from social and political injustices in Colombia during La Violencia, he was also influenced by his grandparents who raised him for part of his childhood. He lived with them because his father struggled to support his mother and siblings (he was the oldest of 12 children). At his grandparents’ derelict home, he heard vivid tales that ignited his imagination while learning the art of storytelling. Another figure that influenced his work was his grandfather Nicolas Mejia, a retired army colonel who was the basis for Colonel Buendia in One Hundred Years of Solitude. As a virtuoso of magical realism he intertwined reality with fantasy, creating layers of meaning. His work depicts controversies and hope in humanity for a better tomorrow regardless of ruthless dictators, strife, and destitution.
At the sunset of his life, he was diagnosed with lymphatic cancer in 1999 and then dementia while writing his last novel, We’ll See Each Other in August. He died in Mexico City on April 17, 2014 but his light cannot be extinguished. It is beguiling and remarkable that he did not want to be remembered for One Hundred Years of Solitude or the Nobel Prize but rather for his journalism. This is significant because he established the Foundation of New Ibero-American Journalism to promote democracy and free press in 1994. We pay homage to him not only for the gift of “magical realism,” but also for his dedication to social justice in Latin America.
