Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Legacy: the Artists Behind the Legends

Gabriel Jose de la Concordia Garcia Marquez was a Colombian journalist, novelist, short-story writer and screenwriter active throughout the later 20th and early 21st centuries. Known to his friends as Gabo or Gabito, Marquez is considered one of the best writers of the Spanish language, earning him the Neustadt International Prize for Literature in 1972 and the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1982. His writing explores the themes of solitude, magical realism, and his brilliant portrayal of Latin American everyday life, as is reflected in novels such as One Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera. These works, along with many others, earned Marquez widespread commercial success and celebrity, as well as monumental critical acclaim. Yet what many do not know about Marquez is that his career was jumpstarted by his passion for journalism, in which he relentlessly pursued his stories in an effort to shed light on the problems faced in Latin America, ranging from his war-torn home country of Colombia to his personal reviews of film, which later led to a stint in screenwriting. Marquez was also bffs with Fidel Castro (we’ll get to that), a socialist who was powerfully critical of the United States, and a family man who was married with two sons. It is easy to see how remarkable Marquez was, particularly in such a volatile time and on an international landscape. Regardless of his stance on American politics, his love of Hemingway and Faulkner is something I both greatly appreciate and adore about Marquez, and it is deeply reflected in his writing. Are we ready to hear all about the incredibly impactful life of Gabriel Garcia Marquez? Here we go episode 18!