Gabriel Garcia Marquez. The Impact of His Work on Latin America

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

Thesis 2

Body 2

Conclusion 6

Notes 7

Bibliography 8

        Gabriel Garcia Marquez is a Colombian author of short stories and novels dealing with military themes in Latin American villages. Born in 1928, Garcia Marquez trained in journalism in the 1960's but later turned to writing such famous novels as The Autumn of the Patriarch and One Hundred Years of Solitude. The writings of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, because of both their ingenuity and controversiality that afforded him great honors, played an influential role in the development, recognition, and subsequent worldwide acceptance of Latin American literature in the twentieth century.

        Garcia Marquez is one of the most successful Latin American writers in the past century, receiving many prestigious awards for his work. He is the 'sole Colombian or Venezuelan author [who] has received an international reputation since 1941'1. His most famous novel, One Hundred Years of Solitude not only became an international best-seller, translated into twenty-five languages, but it was also acclaimed with unparalleled generosity by the author's peers2. In the years following publication of One Hundred Years of Solitude, Garcia Marquez had been the recipient of a long list of international honors, including a doctorate at Colombia University in 1971 and a medal of the French Legion of Honor from Francois Mitterrand, . . . '3 In 1982, Garcia Marquez went on to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature. All these prominent awards helped to elevate Latin American literature to a higher level of recognition.

        The writings of Gabriel Garcia Marquez were very politically controversial, thus drawing his work and the work of other Latin Americans into the limelight. Garcia Marquez considers himself a political person and desires to be seen as a political writer.4 When first involved in journalism working for the El Espectador,