Gabriel Garcia Marquez Research Paper

First a journalist, then a novelist but above all, a realist ("Gabriel Garcia Marquez Influenced"). Gabriel “Gabo” Garcia Marquez was born in Aracataca, Colombia on March 6th, 1927. Eldest of his eleven siblings, Gabo was left to live with his grandparents while his parents searched for work. It was this part of his childhood that influenced his writing, he once said, “...on one hand ... there was the world of my grandfather; a world of stark reality, of civil wars he told me about, since he had been a colonel in the last civil war. And then, on the other hand, there was the world of my grandmother, which was full of fantasy, completely outside of reality” ("Writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez"). Not only was Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s writing style shaped by his grandparents but also Colombia and Latin America. Many had suffered on April 17, 2014 when he passed away, for he had given a voice to all of Latin America ("Writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez").

Gabriel Garcia Marquez studied law and journalism at the National University of Colombia.

After two years of studying law, Gabriel Garcia Marquez said, “When I began the third year of law, I found it no longer interested me because I was completely entranced by literature and journalism” (Lamrani). So, Garcia Marquez began “writing movie reviews, human-interest stories, and a daily, unsigned column...” (Corwin). He was then hired as a journalist for El Espectador in 1954. While working for El Espectador, Gabo began to change his style; the editor, Jose Salgar, began to teach Gabo how to properly communicate his

ideas.
As a journalist, he also uncovered a military scandal after interviewing a survivor of a navy ship “lost at sea.” The survivor admitted the truth behind the “scandal” and the public became aware that the sailors died due to naval negligence (Corwin). It wasn’t just the exposé that caused the public to react, it was the style in which Gabo wrote. The exposed story infuriated the dictator, General Pinilla and Marquez fled to Europe for his safety (Kandell). A few months later, the newspaper was shut down by the government (Corwin).
While in Europe, Gabriel Garcia Marquez worked as a foreign correspondent ("Gabriel Garcia Marquez is Born"). However, he lost his job in the newspaper when it was shut down. This did not deter Garcia Marquez; in order to survive, he sold bottles and began to write novels (Kandell). At this time, he began alternating between journalism and fiction and finally published a fictional collection of stories. Nevertheless, Gabriel Garcia Marquez was unimpressed by Europe and in 1958 returned to Barranquilla, Colombia and married Mercedes Barcha (Reuters).