action, to dissect a personâs behavior for the sake of posterity. In a sense, the methodical biographer is akin to a vampire, sucking the subjectâs blood. Or better yet, like a
dybbuk
, inhabiting his body and soul, walking, eating, and dreaming with him at all times. These images may be grotesque, but they are not altogether inaccurate. By choice, the biographer doesnât quite surrender his own self in order to become someone else. What he does is gather all the possible ingredients of another personâs existence and retrace his journey from one point to another. Needless to say, the biographerâs subjectivity is constantly in question. It is his vision of
el otro
, the suspectâs path as interpreted by the fastidious detective. The best meditation I know on the biographerâs quest is Julio Cortázarâs novella
The Pursuer
, about the impossible attempt to pin down a fictional jazz master whose profile resembles that of Charlie Parker.
Other biographies are punctilious in their delivery of even the most anodyne detail. My quest is not to accumulate facts, for data isnât knowledge. I am most interested in the background to
One Hundred Years of Solitude:
what prompted it and what were the conditions under which it was gestated? In other words, I am after the raw material of literature. Where does a writer find his inspiration? How does he transform life into fiction? My interest is at once on GarcÃa Márquezâs personal travels and in the historical backdrop against which that traveling unfolded.
This biography of Gabriel GarcÃa Márquez covers a little over four decades, from his birth in 1927 in the smallCaribbean coastal town of Aracataca in Colombia to 1970, when Rabassaâs English translation of
One Hundred Years of Solitude
was released by Harper & Row in the United States, three years after its explosive publication in Latin America. I trace the authorâs journey against the tapestry of the principal historical, ideological, and cultural events that shaped Latin America during that period. He lived in almost a dozen places, mostly for extended periods, including Aracataca, Barranquilla, Bogotá, Cartagena, Barcelona, Paris, and Mexico. For most of that time GarcÃa Márquez was, to a large extent, an unknown newspaper reporter and columnist, as well as a screenwriter. He was astoundingly prolific, publishing sundry pieces, sometimes at a bi-weekly rate, if not more often. He built an enviable reputation as an imaginative journalist. But it was in GarcÃa Márquezâs short fictionâstories and novellas, some of which were first published in periodicalsâwhere his true talent emerged. In these pieces the fabulous universe of Macondo and its inhabitants slowly took shape. Equally significant was the way in which he devised a carefully calibrated style (in the words of a reviewer, with GarcÃa Márquez, every sentence is a surprise and the surprise is, in general, âreally an extension of our knowledge or feeling about life, and not simply a trickâ) and plots that were unique to his native environment. It wasnât until after he turned forty that his fortune radically changed, though not always for the better. GarcÃa Márquez is known to have resented the merciless scrutiny fame brought to his private life. My narrative concludes at that point.
In writing this biography, I follow GarcÃa Márquez almost at every turn of his journey. I pore over his journalistic efforts in newspapers, such as
El Heraldo
(Barranquilla),
El Independiente
(Bogotá),
El Univer
s
al
(Cartagena),
El Tiempo
(Bogotá), and
El Espectador
(Bogotá), and magazines like
Elite
(Caracas). These took the form of news reports, political, social, and cultural commentary, travel writing, and chronicles of exceptionalevents, such as the miraculous survival of a sailor lost at sea for twenty-eight days. This account, serialized as âThe
dybbuk
, inhabiting his body and soul, walking, eating, and dreaming with him at all times. These images may be grotesque, but they are not altogether inaccurate. By choice, the biographer doesnât quite surrender his own self in order to become someone else. What he does is gather all the possible ingredients of another personâs existence and retrace his journey from one point to another. Needless to say, the biographerâs subjectivity is constantly in question. It is his vision of
el otro
, the suspectâs path as interpreted by the fastidious detective. The best meditation I know on the biographerâs quest is Julio Cortázarâs novella
The Pursuer
, about the impossible attempt to pin down a fictional jazz master whose profile resembles that of Charlie Parker.
Other biographies are punctilious in their delivery of even the most anodyne detail. My quest is not to accumulate facts, for data isnât knowledge. I am most interested in the background to
One Hundred Years of Solitude:
what prompted it and what were the conditions under which it was gestated? In other words, I am after the raw material of literature. Where does a writer find his inspiration? How does he transform life into fiction? My interest is at once on GarcÃa Márquezâs personal travels and in the historical backdrop against which that traveling unfolded.
This biography of Gabriel GarcÃa Márquez covers a little over four decades, from his birth in 1927 in the smallCaribbean coastal town of Aracataca in Colombia to 1970, when Rabassaâs English translation of
One Hundred Years of Solitude
was released by Harper & Row in the United States, three years after its explosive publication in Latin America. I trace the authorâs journey against the tapestry of the principal historical, ideological, and cultural events that shaped Latin America during that period. He lived in almost a dozen places, mostly for extended periods, including Aracataca, Barranquilla, Bogotá, Cartagena, Barcelona, Paris, and Mexico. For most of that time GarcÃa Márquez was, to a large extent, an unknown newspaper reporter and columnist, as well as a screenwriter. He was astoundingly prolific, publishing sundry pieces, sometimes at a bi-weekly rate, if not more often. He built an enviable reputation as an imaginative journalist. But it was in GarcÃa Márquezâs short fictionâstories and novellas, some of which were first published in periodicalsâwhere his true talent emerged. In these pieces the fabulous universe of Macondo and its inhabitants slowly took shape. Equally significant was the way in which he devised a carefully calibrated style (in the words of a reviewer, with GarcÃa Márquez, every sentence is a surprise and the surprise is, in general, âreally an extension of our knowledge or feeling about life, and not simply a trickâ) and plots that were unique to his native environment. It wasnât until after he turned forty that his fortune radically changed, though not always for the better. GarcÃa Márquez is known to have resented the merciless scrutiny fame brought to his private life. My narrative concludes at that point.
In writing this biography, I follow GarcÃa Márquez almost at every turn of his journey. I pore over his journalistic efforts in newspapers, such as
El Heraldo
(Barranquilla),
El Independiente
(Bogotá),
El Univer
s
al
(Cartagena),
El Tiempo
(Bogotá), and
El Espectador
(Bogotá), and magazines like
Elite
(Caracas). These took the form of news reports, political, social, and cultural commentary, travel writing, and chronicles of exceptionalevents, such as the miraculous survival of a sailor lost at sea for twenty-eight days. This account, serialized as âThe