Gabriel García Márquez popularized the literary form known as magical realism, a kind of writing that mixes fantastic aspects into otherwise realistic stories and is typically based on the theme of solitude.
On Living
All human beings have three lives: public, private, and secret.
In ‘Gabriel García Márquez: A Life’, Márquez told the author of his biography. According to Márquez, the life we live in secret, best reflects our most authentic desires and character makeup.
Life is the best thing that has ever been invented, the only thing that comes for sure is death, colonel
Márquez wrote in his 1961 book ‘No One Writes to the Colonel: and Other Stories’. For Márquez, death was inescapable, yet if one lived a life full of joy, happiness, and love, death is an honor of one’s commitment to leaving the world better off than when we met it.
What matters in life is not what happens to you, but what you remember and how you remember it.
Márquez said while speaking to Gerald Martin, the author of his biography, ‘Gabriel García Márquez: A Life’. Márquez emphasized the need to live a full life and be remembered for good actions and love, rather than hate and bearing animosity towards other people.
On Loving and Being Loved
It is not true that people stop pursuing dreams because they grow old, they grow old because they stop pursuing dreams, He recognised her despite the uproar, through his tears of unrepeatable sorrow at dying without her, and he looked at her for the last and final time with eyes more luminous, more grief-stricken, more grateful than she had ever seen them in half a century of a shared life, and he managed to say to her with his last breath: ‘Only God knows how much I loved you.’
In his 2004 book ‘Memories of My Melancholy Whores’. Love remains a prominent theme in Márquez’s oeuvre. Everyone is capable of love and being loved, and only through vulnerability can people make connections with others.
Age has no reality except in the physical world. The essence of a human being is resistant to the passage of time. Our inner lives are eternal, which is to say that our spirits remain as youthful and vigorous as when we were in full bloom. Think of love as a state of grace, not the means to anything, but the alpha and omega. An end in itself.
From ‘Love in the Time of Cholera’. García Márquez saw love as an end in itself. No other achievement, according to Márquez, came close to the state of loving wholeheartedly and being loved.
On Marriage
He was still too young to know that the heart’s memory eliminates the bad and magnifies the good and that thanks to this artifice we manage to endure the burden of the past. She would defend herself, saying that love, no matter what else it might be, was a natural talent. She would say: You are either born knowing how, or you never know. Always remember that the most important thing in a good marriage is not happiness, but stability.
From ‘Love in the Time of Cholera‘, which was first published in Spanish in 1985. Since García Márquez extolled love, he was also a pragmatist and believed the key to the longevity of any union was understanding and tolerance, as the cozy feelings of love and affection fizzle out over time.
Fiction was invented the day Jonah arrived home and told his wife that he was three days late because he had been swallowed by a whale. The problem with marriage is that it ends every night after making love, and it must be rebuilt every morning before breakfast.
From ‘Love In The Time of Cholera.’ As with any relationship, Márquez believed a marriage requires the effort and commitment from both parties for it to work. Love is not effortless. It requires steadfastness and wholehearted devotion to its maintenance.
On Neocolonialism and Capitalism
Europeans, insist on measuring us with the yardstick that they use for themselves, forgetting that the ravages of life are not the same for all and that the quest for our own identity is just as arduous and bloody for us as it was for them. Latin America neither wants nor has any reason, to be a pawn without a will of its own; nor is it merely wishful thinking that its quest for independence and originality should become a Western aspiration. In spite of this, to oppression, plundering and abandonment, we respond with life.
In his speech at the 1982 Nobel Prize ceremony. Delivered in Spanish, Márquez expresses his reiteration for the independence of Latin America, which he was committed to throughout his writing career. He used magical realism to critique the conventions of the imperialist culture of the West and assert the right of Latin America to self-define its conventions and way of life.
Something frightful, like a kitchen dragging a village behind it.
In ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude‘, the quote describes the train that was brought into Macondo. The iron rails of the railroad puncture Macondo, shattering the city of mirrors one crack at a time.
The construction of railroad tracks, which were originally established by the United Fruit Company for the exclusive transportation of fruits to the US, is an example of an imperialist monopoly. Western-style capitalism, which contributed to the doom of Macondo, was in diametric opposition to Márquez’s socialist beliefs. He believed capitalism was a form of neocolonialism and imperialism.
On Writing
The duty of the writers is not to preserve the language but to open the way for it in history. The grammarians burst with anger at our blunders but those of the next century pick them up as genius of the language. So rest assured: there is no lawsuit. See you in the third millennium.
In an interview with Joaquin Estafania, Gabriel Garcia Marquez made the aforementioned statement. He was likely referring to contemporary critics trying to make sense of his use of magical realism to critique culture. Márquez believed writers to be gatekeepers of the society, and not only preserve its culture but expose other aspects of culture that might be oblivious to the general populace.
It always amuses me that the biggest praise for my work comes for the imagination, while the truth is that there’s not a single line in all my work that does not have a basis in reality. The problem is that Caribbean reality resembles the wildest imagination.
Culled from The Paris Review Interviews, Gabriel García Márquez, ‘The Art of Fiction ’. While critics like to point out that magical realism is simply a literary device used to critique contemporary culture, Márquez asserts that is objective truth, as Latin American culture is superstitious and believes these magical elements to be reality.
FAQs
What is Gabriel García Márquez’s writing style?
The most well-known author in Latin America was and is Gabriel Garcia Marquez, a master of the literary genre known as magic realism. His books were rife with fantastical and enthralling characters, madness and love, wars and politics, dreams and death.
Is Gabriel García Márquez still alive?
No. Gabriel García Márquez was born on the 6th of March, 1927, and died on the 17th of April, 2014.
What was his last published work?
‘Memories of My Melancholy Whores’, published in 2004, a decade before his death.
What is Gabriel García Márquez’s most popular quote?
“What matters in life is not what happens to you but what you remember and how you remember it.”
