Gabriel García Márquez

Colombian writer and Nobel laureate (1927-2014) · Colombia · Writers · Died at 87

Gabriel García Márquez is read about 4,711 times a day, in 167 languages.

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He made the world believe a woman could ascend to heaven while folding sheets and that a town could be erased by collective amnesia. García Márquez didn't just write novels; he rewired what fiction could hold - the ordinary and the impossible occupying the same sentence, the same breath.

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A life in dates

2024Until AugustBook published after his death6 March 2024More about this, posthumous novel by Gabriel García Márquez2014Died17 April 20142012Order of HonourAward2002“Life is not what one lived, but what one remembers and how one remembers it in order to recount it.”In their wordsVivir para contarla as translated by Edith Grossman (2004), Vintage International.Read the whole statement

1993Orden al Mérito Docente y Cultural Gabriela MistralAward1982Nobel Prize in LiteratureAwardOrder of the Aztec EagleAward1981“In the end all books are written for your friends.”In their wordsp. 322Read the whole statement

“Ultimately, literature is nothing but carpentry.”In their wordsp. 325Read the whole statement

“I would like for my books to have been recognized posthumously, at least in capitalist countries, where they turn you into a kind of merchandise.”In their wordsp. 336Read the whole statement

“I can't think of any one film that improved on a good novel, but I can think of many good films that came from very bad novels.”In their wordsp. 338Read the whole statement

Grand Officer of the Legion of HonourAward1980Commander of the Legion of HonourAwardCommon Wealth Award of Distinguished ServiceAward1975“...a lie is more comfortable than doubt, more useful than love, more lasting than truth ...”In their wordstranslated from El Ontoño del Patriarica (1975) by Gregory RabassaRead the whole statement

1972Rómulo Gallegos PrizeAward1971Neustadt International Prize for LiteratureAward1927Born6 March 1927

Also in Deutsch

Photos 8

Gabriel Garcia Marquez

026903-015 SECRETARIO DE EDUCACIÓN PÚBLICA INAUGURA CONFERENCIAS SOBRE DERECHOS DE AUTOR EN EL FORO COYOACANENSE, ASISTE GABRIEL GARCÍA MARQUEZ SEPTIEMBRE 25 1986 (40124302954)

026903-016 SECRETARIO DE EDUCACIÓN PÚBLICA INAUGURA CONFERENCIAS SOBRE DERECHOS DE AUTOR EN EL FORO COYOACANENSE, ASISTE GABRIEL GARCÍA MARQUEZ SEPTIEMBRE 25 1986 (40124302534)

163 Biblioteca Gabriel García Márquez, c. Treball 219 (Barcelona), citació

Biblioteca Nacional - Salon Gabriel Garcia Marquez - Typewriter

Calavera García Márquez

Carrera Décima con Mural de Gabo

Casa Museo Gabriel García Márquez-Comedor

In their own words 10

Gabriel García Márquez

10 statements, newest first

Life is not what one lived, but what one remembers and how one remembers it in order to recount it.
2002, Vivir para contarla as translated by Edith Grossman (2004), Vintage International., Own words
Santiago Nasar had often told me that the smell of closed-in flowers had an immediate relation to death for him.
1981, Chronicle of a Death Foretold (1981), trans. Gregory Rabassa [Ballantine, 1984, ], p. 47, Own words
In the end all books are written for your friends.
1981, p. 322, Own words

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Awards

Order of Honour2012

Orden al Mérito Docente y Cultural Gabriela Mistral1993

Nobel Prize in Literature1982

Order of the Aztec Eagle1982

Grand Officer of the Legion of Honour1981

Common Wealth Award of Distinguished Service1980

Commander of the Legion of Honour1980

Rómulo Gallegos Prize1972

Neustadt International Prize for Literature1971

Simón Bolívar award

Family

Father Gabriel Eligio García

Gabriel García Márquez

Partners

Spouse Mercedes Barcha

Child Rodrigo García Márquez

Sibling Eligio García Márquez

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About this person

Born 6 March 1927 in Colombia, Gabriel José García Márquez left law school for journalism and spent years sharpening his eye in newsrooms, never shy about skewering politics at home or abroad. In 1967 he published One Hundred Years of Solitude, a multi-generation saga set in the fictional village of Macondo that has since sold over fifty million copies and made magic realism a living tradition. The novels that followed - Chronicle of a Death Foretold in 1981, Love in the Time of Cholera in 1985 - cemented him as the most-translated Spanish-language author alive. In 1982 he won the Nobel Prize in Literature for combining the fantastic and the realistic in a richly composed world reflecting a continent's life and conflicts. He married Mercedes Barcha Pardo in 1958; they had two sons, Rodrigo and Gonzalo. When he died on 17 April 2014, Colombia's president called him the greatest Colombian who ever lived.

Country

Colombia

In common with Gabriel

Javier BardemAlso in Love in the Time of Cholera (2007)

Lucha VillaAlso in The Golden Cockerel (1964)

Ornella MutiAlso in Chronicle of a Death Foretold (1987)

Geraldine ChaplinAlso in Memories of My Melancholy Whores (2011)

Carlos FuentesAlso in Time to Die (1966)

Irene PapasAlso in Erendira (1983)

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