Gabriel Garcia Marquez: The Nobel Prize-Winning Father of Magical Realism and His Impact on Literature

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The Nobel Prize winner novelist, journalist, screen writer and short story writer widely known as one the father figures of Magical Realism is Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Marquez was born in 1982 in Aracataca, Columbia. At the age of 13, he moved to Bogota for studies. After school, he started studying law but then abandoned it and indulged himself in journalism and story writing. He brought a revolution in literature with his works having the latest theme of Magical Realism. The term Magical Realism was coined by the German writer Franz Roh in 1925 as Magischer Realismus. He was influenced by the European writer Franz Kafka who wrote The Metamorphosis.

Moreover, other literary figures who influenced him include William Faulkner, Virginia Woolf, Jorge Louise Borhes and Alejo Carpentier. Another source of his work was his grandmother who was a brick faced storyteller (A narrator who tells stories without changing face expressions).  Another factor which played a great role in his works is the Latin American history which is full of civil war i.e., La Violencia which was a ten-year civil war between Columbian Liberal Party and the Conservative Party, The Thousand Days’ War.

There is, undoubtedly, none other than Marquez who depicted Magical Realism in his most famous work One Hundred Years of Solitude (known as Cien Anos De Soledad in Spanish) in such a way that no one could have done better. He once said that if he is telling a story, he is convinced that what he is providing is real.

Marquez was exiled from Columbia in 1955 for some of his columns against the policies of the government of the time. He was also friends with the Liberal freedom fighter Simon Bolivar who contributed the most in Spanish Revolution. He was also banned in the USA for his strong political views for almost three decades. The ban was lifted when Bill Clinton Invited him there in 1995. His most famous work One Hundred Years of Solitude is considered autobiographical as he set the novel' setting Macondo in his hometown Aracataca and his grandfather was also a progressive politician which had a great impact on Marquez’s life. Furthermore, he also used the historical and political context of Latin America to criticize the government and conventions of society which were made normal but were not actually normal.

However, it is needed to note that it’s not completely autobiographical. His other famous works other than One Hundred Years of Solitude are Love in the Time of Cholera, Of Love and Other Demons and many others. He died in 2014 in Mexico after struggling with dementia for over 10 years and thus Marquez’s era ended.