Abilenian Public Library author spotlight: Gabriel Garcia Márquez

Gabriel García Márquez was an award-winning author whose work combined the fantastical and realistic to depict the life he knew in his native Columbia.

He once stated that each of his stories was inspired by a visual image. It is perhaps no surprise then that his work also inspired several films, including the 2007 "Love in the Time of Cholera" based on his work "El Amor en los Tiempos del Cólera".

The novel displays Márquez’s style of incorporating magical elements into a setting that is otherwise ordinary. It follows main characters Florentino and Fermina Daza and the changing nature of their relationship over the course of their lives.

The author's best-selling, and most translated work, is “One Hundred Years of Solitude,” or “Cien Años de Soledad”. Like his other works, it displays the uniquely 1960s Latin American literary movement of Magical Realism. The plot revolves around seven generations of the Buendía family and themes such as the inability to escape the ghosts of the past,fFatalism and solitude.

A copy is available in English and Spanish through our Hoopla streaming service.

The author’s own memoir is “Living to Tell the Tale,” or “Vivir Para Contarla," His vivid imagery is present as he describes his eccentric family and his childhood home of Aracataca, a river town located in the Caribbean region of Columbia, from his birth in 1927 until 1950, when he proposed to his wife.

It was intended to be the first in an autobiographical trilogy.

The library has books onshelf, and through hoopla, about the author in English and Spanish. Offerings through Hoopla include “Gabriel García Márquez y El Cine” by Gonzalo Restrepo Sánchez and Ilan Stavans’ “Gabriel García Márquez: The Early Years."

If you prefer to hold the book you’re reading, try “A Farewell to Gabo and Mercedes: A Son's Memoir of Gabriel García Márquez and Mercedes Barcha” by Rodrigo Garcia. In the bilingual “My Name is Gabito: The Life of Gabriel García Márquez”, Monica Brown brings to life the imagination of the boy that would grow into the writer to introduce young readers to this accomplished author.

Known throughout Latin America as Gabito, or Gabo, Gabriel García Márquez is considered one of the most significant authors of the 20th century. He was a journalist, novelist and screenwriter who received many awards including the 1972 Neustadt International Prize for Literature and the 1982 Nobel Prize in Literature.

To learn more about Márquez, or to read one of his many titles, stop by one of our locations, or visit Hoopla via our website. You will find many titles available in both English and Spanish that will bring alive his life and work.

This article originally appeared on Abilene Reporter-News: Abilenian Public Library author spotlight: Gabriel Garcia Márquez