Gabriel García Márquez: 5 facts that you may not know!

• Almost 10 years have passed since Gabriel García Márquez died.
• The Colombian author is one of the most respected of all time.
• Learn 5 fascinating facts about his life!

Gabriel José García Márquez was born on March 6, 1927 in Aracataca, Colombia. When he was just a child, he was left in the care of his maternal grandparents, which ultimately impacted the way he wrote, the subjects he chose and the symbols around his characters.

As a teenager, he began to write his first poems and explore a fantasy world. At the age of 20, he published his first written work, which would be the beginning of a career as a reporter. Still, he never left behind his desire to write fiction and published his first novel, La Hojarasca, in 1955. This would be the beginning of a long career. He published 11 novels and 37 short stories. Here are five facts about Gabriel García Márquez that you may not have known!

5. GABRIEL GARCÍA MÁRQUEZ WAS A SOCIALIST 

Living with his maternal grandfather shaped Gabriel García Márquez’s political and social vision. He told him all the horrors of the Civil War had. Thus, García Márquez always offered supported leftist movements, especially Cuban leader Fidel Castro.

As a reporter, lawyer, and fiction writer, Gabriel García Márquez never hid his political leanings, and although he came to criticize some aspects of left-wing movements, he firmly believed in social change that would benefit the less privileged classes.

4. WHY WASN’T ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE EVER MADE INTO A MOVIE?

It was his passion for fighting for oppressed people that led the Colombian author to reject US dominance, both in politics and in the arts and entertainment. For this reason, he refused to bring One Hundred Years of Solitude to the big screen.

One of the arguments that García Márquez gave to avoid making his best-known novel into a film was that one of his intentions when writing One Hundred Years of Solitude was for the Colombian and Latin American reader to see their own story reflected in the characters, so casting Caucasian actors would destroy this vision.

3. GABRIEL GARCIA MARQUEZ WON THE NOBEL PRIZE FOR LITERATURE

Gabriel García Márquez’s legacy was not limited solely to his fictional novels and short stories. He was also a renowned reporter and columnist who got involved in social issues, expressing at all times the need for political change that would benefit the most vulnerable classes.

In 1982, he received the Nobel Prize for Literature, perhaps one of the greatest honors a writer can aspire to, thanks to his novels and short stories, as well as the masterful combination of fantastic and real elements that managed to convey the conflicts that crossed his country. At the time of receiving the award, the author paid tribute to his country and to Latin America.

2. THE LEGAL BATTLE BETWEEN GABRIEL GARCÍA MÁRQUEZ AND VARGAS LLOSA

Yes, Gabriel García Márquez was always a man who sought to entertain and show the history of his country through the written word, but this did not mean that controversy was not part of his life. The writer met his Peruvian colleague Mario Vargas Llosa at a film premiere after they had been friends for many years.

Vargas Llosa punched him in the eye, a reaction shocked everyone, including García Márquez himself, who was unaware of the reason for Vargas Llosa’s anger. It was rumored that Patricia, the Peruvian’s wife, had confided in García Márquez who encouraged her to divorce her husband.

1. HOW DID THE AUTHOR GROW UP?

Gabriel García Márquez’s life was filled with conflict, but also great teachings. When he was a child, his parents left him in the care of his maternal grandparents. His grandfather, Colonel Nicolás Marquez, was a basis of his fiction, and family dynamics also inspired many of his stories and novels.

His grandmother, Tranquilina Iguarán, was always mentioned as the main source of the fantasy that García Márquez included in most of his works, combining natural elements with fiction to create the most awarded works in history, such as One Hundred Years of Solitude, No One Writes to the Colonel and Love in the Time of Cholera.