Gabriel García Márquez

Literature / Writers Datebook: March 6

 

Brief biography of Colombian writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez, novelist and short story writer, noted for magical realism stories, and famous for his book, One Hundred Years of Solitude.

 

 

Gabriel García Márquez is one of South America's most respected and famous writers. He is best known for One Hundred Years of Solitude, awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1982. Garcia Marques is generally regarded as the greatest practitioner "magic realism".

The term "magic realism" refers in particular, to works of South American novelists in which are describes happenings in the real world with excursions into the realm of fantasy.       

Early Life

Garcia Marquez was born in Aracataca, on March 6, 1928, in a small town in Colombia. His childhood home was large and extended, and became the inspiration for many of his later work. After studying law in college, Garcia Marquez became a newspaper journalist and began to publish stories and articles in various periodicals.

Career as a Journalist

His work as a journalist took him to Europe and to the South American countries, where he witnessed the oppression and violence suffered by people living under dictatorships. His own country, Colombia, also suffered from political violence.

The Novelist

At the age 27, Garcia Marquez published his first book, Leafstorm and Other Stories. Macondo, the fictional Colombian town that is the setting for the title story, later became the setting for his most famous book, One Hundred Years of Solitude. He wrote it during a stay in Mexico several years later, and it was published when he was 39.

One Hundred Years of Solitude, which became internationally famous, follows the fortunes of the Buendia family and the provincial town in which they live from the earliest days pf European settlements to the present. Garcia Marquez vividly narrates the lives of the decaying family. It is an allegory of the history of Colombia. 

Garcia Marquez's style of writing mixed politics and everyday life in a settling that was full of larger-than-life characters, sex, violence and magical events - a good example of magic realism.    

Later Years

However, in his later novel, The General in his Labyrinth, a fictionalized biography of Simon Bolivar, the hero of Latin American independence, according to critics, seemed to mark a departure of the work of Garcia Marquez in a more realistic approach to his subject. 

Gabriel García Márquez died on April 17, 2014 (age 87 years), in Mexico City, Mexico

 

Works by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Leafstorm and other Stories, 1955

No One Writes to the Colonel, 1958

One hundred Years of Solitude, 1967

The Autumn of the Patriarch, 1975

In Evil Hour, 1979

Chronicle of a Death Foretold, 1981

Love in the Time of Cholera, 1985

The General in his Labyrinth, 1989-1990

Of Love and Other Demons, 1995

 

Photo credit:

Gabriel Garcia Marquez. NNDB.com

 

Resources:

Biographical Dictionary, edited by Una McGovern, Chambers (2002)

Dictionary of Writers, edited by Rosemary Goring, Larousse (1994)  

Guide to Literature in English, by Ian Ousby, Cambridge University Press (1993)

 

(c) March 2009. Updated March 6, 2024. Tel. Inspired Pen Web. All rights reserved.  

Frédéric François Chopin

Classical Music / Composers Datebook: March 1

Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin was a Polish composer and piano player. His music was exclusively written for piano. He lived in Paris since 1830, aged 20, where he changed his name into Frédéric François Chopin. He is famous for Piano concertos 1 and 2, nocturnes, etudes, mazukas, and the popular solo piano "Fantaisie-Impromptu". 

Frédéric François Chopin was born Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin, on March 1, 1810, in Zelazowa Wola, Masovia region, Duchy of Warsaw, Poland. His father, named Mikolaj (Nicolas) Chopin, was a Frenchman who came to Poland from Lorraine, and eventually became professor at Warsaw Lyceum. His mother, named Tekla Justina Krzyzanovska, was a relative of Polish Countess Ludwika Skarbkowa, owner of the Zelazowa Wola estate.

From 1816-1822 Chopin studied piano under professional musician Wojcech Zywny. He wrote his first piano compositions at the age of 7. At 8, he gave piano concerts and wanted to become a professional piano player.

In 1820, Chopin moved with his family to Warsaw. There he gained a reputation as a "second Mozart" for his piano playing. He moved to Paris in 1830, aged 20, where he was welcomed by important composers of his time like Franz Liszt and Hector Berlioz as well as no prominent authors like Heinrich Heine and Honoré de Balzac. The aristocratic circles had Chopin playing in their salon all the time, especially his own polonaise compositions which were inspired by his Polish background.

Note: Apology, the video of the legendary concert pianist Martha Argerich playing Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 1 in E minor, Op. 11, with Sinfonia Varsovia Orchestra, conducted by Jacek Kaspszyk, is no longer available when I revisited Youtube (1 March 2024). Instead, I found this link:  Here.  I hope this stays available: Martha Argerich: Chopin Piano Concerto No. 1 in E minor, Op. 11(Live in Warsaw, 1999). Sinfonia Varsovia conducted by Alexandre Rabinovitch May 14, 1999 Teatr Wielki Opera Narodowa.

 

Below, I found this video uploaded by Michael Nichols:  Martha Argerich interpreting  Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 2, conducted by Bernard Klee. The orchestra is not mentioned. Accessed 1 March 2024.