By Shruti Singh:
Gabriel GarcÃa Márquez was a Colombian writer and journalist, and was much more than just those professions. He dumped his law degree for a career in journalism, and the world sincerely thanks him for it. A Nobel laureate, he had the capacity to truly understand the culture and realities of Latin America. His work is short, crisp, and takes you on a journey to your own world- that of complicated love, unjustifiable crimes, and basic human emotional tendencies.
Be it One Hundred Years of Solitude, Love in the Time of Cholera, Chronicle of a Death Foretold, or Memories of My Melancholy Whores, his novels had three things in common- violence, Latin America, and lots of characters. His work is synonymous with realism and reflects the challenges of the region, especially those that were created by European and North American political and cultural imperialists. Márquez was known for his sharp writing style that was never ambiguous. But he was more than a cultural writer. You could pick up a novel, start reading, and feel that this is your story; this is where you stand in life and this writer has felt all that before. He teaches you to be honest, to be able to accept others as they are, and to be proud of your roots. He knew when to be critical of his country and when to glorify it. Completely balanced, his writing does not lack excitement. Once you pick up a Márquez novel or short-story, you wouldn’t want to keep it down unless you’ve finished it. His novels do not run into 500 pages. They keep the reader’s attention intact, unless you can’t remember too many characters.
He was and will always be the go-to author for each of us who relate to the cultural colonisation by the West till this day. Márquez will always be in our hearts and on our book shelves for generations to come. He passed away on 17 April 2014.
He was magic. He will always be. Go on and read his work, if you haven’t already.
“There is always something left to love.” (One Hundred Years of Solitude)