Gabriel Jos de la Concordia Garc a M rquez (born March 6, 1927) is a Colombian novelist, short-story writer, screenwriter and journalist. Garc a M rquez, familiarly known as `Gabo` in his native country, is one of Latin America`s most famous writers. He is considered one of the most significant authors of the 20th century, and in 1982 was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. In his early years he was strongly influenced by his grandfather who raised him. As he grew, he pursued a highly self-directed education that resulted in his quitting law school in order to begin a career in journalism. Early in this career he demonstrated he had no inhibitions to be critical of politics within Colombia and beyond. In 1958, he married Mercedes Barcha and they have since had two sons together.
He started out as a journalist, and has written many acclaimed non-fiction works, and short stories, but is best-known for his novels, such as One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967) and Love in the Time of Cholera (1985). He has achieved significant critical acclaim and widespread commercial success, most notably for popularizing a literary style labeled as magical realism in which he uses certain magical elements and events in order to explain real experiences. Some of his works take place in a fictional village called Macondo, and most of them express the theme of solitude.

One Hundred Years of Solitude
Since Garc a M rquez was eighteen, he had wanted to write a novel based on his grandparents` house where he grew up. However, he struggled with finding an appropriate tone and put off the idea until one day the answer hit him while driving his family to Acapulco. He turned the car around and the family returned home so he could begin writing. He sold his car so his family would have money to live off of while he wrote, but writing the novel took far longer than he expected, he wrote everyday for eighteen months. His wife had to ask for food on credit from their butcher and their baker as well as nine months of rent on credit from their landlord. Fortunately, when the book was finally published in 1967 it became his most commercially successful novel, One Hundred Years of Solitude (Cien a os de soledad) (1967 English translation by Gregory Rabassa 1970). The story chronicles several generations of the Buend a family from the time they found the fictional South American village Macondo through their trials and tribulations, instances of incest, births, and deaths. The history of Macondo is often generalized by critics to represent rural towns throughout Latin America or at least near Garc a M rquez`s native Aracataca.
This novel was widely popular and led to Garc a M rquez`s nobel prize as well as the R mulo Gallegos Prize in 1972. William Kennedy has called it `the first piece of literature since the Book of Genesis that should be required reading for the entire human race,` and hundreds of articles and books of literary critique have been published in response to it. However, Garc a M rquez himself does not completely understand the success of this particular book: `Most critics don`t realize that a novel like One Hundred Years of Solitude is a bit of a joke, full of signals to close friends and so, with some pre-ordained right to pontificate they take on the responsibility of decoding the book and risk making terrible fools of themselves.
Chronicle of a Death Foretold
Chronicle of a Death Foretold (Cr nica de una muerte anunciada) recreates a murder that took place in Sucre, Colombia in 1951. The character named Santiago Nasar is based on a good friend from Garc a M rquez`s childhood, Cayetano Gentile Chimento. Pelayo classifies this novel as a combination of journalism, realism and detective story.
The plot of the novel revolves around Santiago Nasar`s murder. The narrator acts as a detective, uncovering the events of the murder second by second. Literary critic Ruben Pelayo notes that the story `unfolds in an inverted fashion. Instead of moving forward... the plot moves backwards.` In the first chapter, the narrator tells the reader exactly who killed Santiago Nasar and the rest of the book is left to unfold why.
Chronicle of a Death Foretold was published in 1981, just one year before Garc a M rquez was winner of 1982`s Nobel Prize in Literature. The novel was also adapted into a film by Spanish director Francesco Rossi in 1987.
Love in the Time of Cholera
Love in the Time of Cholera (El amor en los tiempos del c lera) was first published in 1985. It is considered a nontraditional love story as `lovers find love in their `golden years`- in their seventies, when death is all around them`.
Love in the Time of Cholera is based on the stories of two couples. The young love of Fermina Daza and Florentino Ariza is based on the love affair of Garc a M rquez`s parents.However, as Garc a M rquez explains in an interview: The only difference is [my parents] married. And as soon as they were married, they were no longer interesting as literary figures. The love of old people is based on a newspaper story about the death of two Americans, who were almost 80 years old, who met every year in Acapulco. They were out in a boat one day and were murdered by the boatman with his oars. Garc a M rquez notes, Through their death, the story of their secret romance became known. I was fascinated by them. They were each married to other people.
Nobel Prize
In 1982, Garc a M rquez received the Nobel Prize in Literature `for his novels and short stories, in which the fantastic and the realistic are combined in a richly composed world of imagination, reflecting a continent`s life and conflicts`. His acceptance speech was entitled `Solitude of Latin America`. Garc a M rquez was the first Colombian and fourth Latin American to win a Nobel Prize for Literature. After becoming a Nobel laureate, Garc a M rquez told a correspondent: `I have the impression that in giving me the prize they have taken into account the literature of the sub-continent and have awarded me as a way of awarding all of this literature.`
This is what Jon Lee Anderson wrote in September , 1999 about Gabriel Garc a M rquez and the colombia`s current situation. `Gabo is the one person who could go out and stand between the two sides shooting at one another and say `No more,` and everyone would listen. If he could play that role, it would be a tremendous thing for Colombia. Everyone from Clinton to Castro listens to him. But can he help rescue Colombia from left-wing guerrillas and right-wing death squads?