books
gabriel garcia marquez a life
the first full and authorized biography of the 1982 winner of the nobel prize in literature the most popular international novelist of the last fifty years . br over the course of the nearly two decades gerald martin gave to the research and writing of this masterly biography he not only spent many hours in conversation with gabriel garcia marquez himself but also interviewed more than three hundred others including garcia marquezs wife and sons mother and siblings literary agent and translators ; carlos fuentes mario vargas llosa and alvaro mutis among other writers ; fidel castro and felipe gonzalez among other political figures ; his closest friends as well as those who consider themselves his detractors . the result is a revelation of both the writer and the man . br garcia marquezs story is a remarkable one . born in 1927 raised by grandparents and a clutch of aunts in a small backwater town in colombia the shy intelligent boy matured into a reserved young man first working as a provincial journalist and later as a foreign correspondent whose years of obscurity came to an end when at the age of forty he published the novel entitled cien anos de soledad one hundred years of solitude . within months the book had garnered spectacular international acclaim the author hailed as the standard bearer of a new literature magical realism . eight years later in 1975 he published the autumn of the patriarch and in 1981 chronicle of a death foretold each novel rapturously received by critics and readers alike . with his books read by millions around the world he had become a man of wealth and influence . yet for all his fame he never lost touch with his roots though he had lived outside of colombia since 1955 in barcelona mexico city paris his nobel prize was celebrated by colombians from all walks of life who thought and still think of gabo as their own . more books followed both fiction love in the time of cholera the general in his labyrinth memories of my melancholy whores and nonfiction the story of a shipwrecked sailor news of a kidnapping living to tell the tale . but garcia marquezs renown and passion have continued to combine as well in a fervent unflagging and often controversial political and social activism . br while chronicling the particulars of the life martin also considers the overarching issues the tension between garcia marquezs celebrity and his quest for literary quality and between his politics and his writing ; the seductions of power solitude and love . he explores the contrast between the exuberance of the writers caribbean background and the authoritarianism of highland bogota showing us how these differences are manifest in his writing and in the very shape his life has taken . he explores the melding of experience and imagination in garcia marquezs fiction and he examines the writers reasons for and the publics reaction to his turning away in the 1980s from the magical realism that had brought him international renown toward the greater simplicity that would mark his work beginning with love in the time of cholera . br gerald martin has written a superb biography richly illuminating as gripping as any of gabriel garcia marquezs powerful journalism as enthralling as any of his acclaimed and beloved fiction .
hardcover knopf publishing group 2009 isbn13 9780307271778 isbn10 0307271773
abridged n isbn 13 9780307271778 number in series 1 number of pages 641 publisher random house inc release date 1241481600000