Essay on My Favorite Author

From the heat and dust of Latin America, poverty-stricken and often violent, Gabriel Garcia Marquez combined past accounts and irrational beliefs, the genuine and the dreamlike to make a world as extraordinary and alluring as a South-American carnival. He grew up in a Columbian town known as Aracataca, a lonely kid who put up at his grandparents’ home. That upbringing framed the reason for his most well-known novel, 100 years of solitude. A famous global newspaper once termed the book as “the principle bit of literature ever since the writing of the books of the bible that ought to be perused by the whole of mankind.” Gabriel Garcia Marquez once opined that “growing old has never stopped anyone from seeking their dreams, rather growing old results from stopping to seek one’s dreams.” The novelist’s literature command has motivated millions globally, but unfortunately, he passed away on 17^th April 2014, aged 87. The book, a 100 years of solitude is viewed as the most well-known and compelling art of fiction of a Spanish nature from the time when Miguel de Cervantes put out Don Quixote in the mid-17^th century (Ortega, 2014).

The Columbian novelist, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, attributed with acquainting global literary works to a type of writing known as magic realism, was initially a journalist. Gabriel Garcia books depended on genuine encounters, as he later revealed. He believed that this was additionally extraordinary and strange than what his imaginations were. His most famous novel, a 100 years of solitude was converted into in excess of 30 dialects. It is played out in an imaginary township called Macondo, which is in tandem with the birthplace of Garcia Marquez, Aracataca. Aracataca was once an unknown town that has now become synonymous with the best-selling author (Pelayo et al., 2001). Garcia Marquez’s novels and short stories which mix the fabulous and the genuine in a manner that enlivened the personality and the struggles of South Americans made him the recipient of literature’s Nobel Prize in 1982.

Garcia Marquez wrote a book, 100 years of solitude that became his continent’s bible. Numerous people in South America have memorized entire chapters and can recite them as a tribute to the imagination that Marquez brought along. One hundred years of solitude is a book that feels infinite, and everything fits into it. It is a book also that feels perfect, in that it does not have a single comma that is extra, a line that is missing and it seems to have been written even before the world was created, and Garcia Marquez was a sheer “secretary”, who downloaded or gave it to the rest of the world. The book put the continent of South America on the world map with its 450 million population since, before the existence of the book, Latin America was considered primitive.

Sentiments by other literary giants are that Garcia Marquez deserves a place in the pantheon of literary greats. This is because one would have to go way back many centuries ago to encounter a novelist of that pedigree who had such extraordinary influence on many populations. One hundred years of solitude had vast sums of sale all over the world, i.e. 50 million copies. The average novel might sell 3000 copies in comparison. This was a quality novel aside from being an intellectual novel, and yet it was a novel full of emotions, feeling and human life. The combining of political crusade, intelligent questions and social stories is an incredible feat that most authors can never manage and he pulled it off. He was a pioneer in magic realism, and it is the sentiment of other literary novelists that he is the most celebrated novelist of the 20^th century and deserves a place in the pantheon of greats (Cavallaro, 2005).

Gabriel Garcia Marquez never claimed to be the originator of magic realism, but he certainly elevated it to another level. He was brought up by his grandparents, and his grandmother was a woman who taught him about ghosts, everyday fantasies and everyday magic and told him stories and superstitions. And that while he was growing up was a significant influence over him. This was a way of articulating critical political concerns without stating them overtly as Macondo suffers from insomnia in 100 years of solitude novel (Wood, 1990). He was incredibly influential over authors in Latin America and generally authors across the world since he was incredibly readable, i.e. his books were captivating.

El-Gabo, as he was called, was also a politics enthusiast. He saw himself as a dedicated liberal and a dear companion of Fidel Castro, who was Cuba’s socialist chief. While he was one of the defenders of the revolution in Cuba, he frequently mediated to acquire the freedom of detainees, especially intellectuals. Garcia Marquez insisted that he was a journalist above all. This was made apparent by the support extended towards a Cuban film school, and in Columbia, he sponsored the new journalism school to promote alternative forms of mass communication. Towards his demise, Marquez seldom went out. Marquez’s age which was advanced and frail well-being, kept him from what he loved best. Gabriel Garcia Marquez will nevertheless be remembered for long not only for his association with magic realism pioneering, but also for fuelling fascination of literature from his continent that will long outlive him. This is the reason why this paper chose Garcia Marquez as its author of focus. Garcia Marquez’s popularity both with mass audiences and academic audiences may rise and fall over time. Still, nothing will change the fact that he took literary works from over 30 nations and using a single novel, i.e. a 100 years of solitude, transformed the globe. When Marquez died, the government in tribute to his memory decreed three days of national mourning and ordered public organizations to raise the national flag at half-pole.

References

Cavallaro, R. (2005). Solution to Dissolution: Detective Fiction from Wilkie Collins to Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Tex. J. Women & L., 15, 1.

Ortega, J. (2014). Gabriel García Márquez and the powers of fiction. University of Texas Press.

Pelayo, R., Coutiño, R. P., and ́n Pelayo, R. (2001). Gabriel García Márquez: a critical companion. Greenwood Publishing Group.

Wood, M. (1990). Gabriel García Márquez: One hundred years of solitude. CUP Archive.