García Márquez, Gabriel (Gabo) (1928– )

Colombian novelist. His sweeping novel Cien años de soledad/One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967) (which tells the story of a family over a period of six generations) is an example of magic realism, a technique used to heighten the intensity of realistic portrayal of social and political issues by introducing grotesque or fanciful material. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982.

He began his career as a journalist, working as a foreign correspondent in Europe, Latin America, and the USA. His other books include El amor en los tiempos del cólera/Love in the Time of Cholera (1985), El general en su laberinto/The General in His Labyrinth (1991), a fictional account of the last four months of Simón Bolívar's life, and Noticia de un secuestro/News of a Kidnapping (1996), a non-fiction account of the Colombian drug world. He published Vivir para contarla/Living to Tell the Tale in 2003.