Gabriel García Márquez

Once asked in Paris Review interview the year before his Nobel win about the difference between the novel and journalism, García Márquez replied,

“Nothing. I don’t think there is any difference. The sources are the same, the material is the same, the resources and the language are the same.”

In journalism just one fact that is false prejudices the entire work. In contrast, in fiction one single fact that is true gives legitimacy to the entire work. That’s the only difference, and it lies in the commitment of the writer. A novelist can do anything he wants so long as he makes people believe in it

Gabriel García Márquez was born in 1927 in the small town of Aracataca, situated in a tropical region of northern Colombia, between the mountains and the Caribbean Sea.

He grew up with his maternal grandparent – his grandfather was a pensioned colonel from the civil war at the beginning of the century.

He went to a Jesuit college and began to read law, but his studies were soon broken off for his work as a journalist.

In 1954 he was sent to Rome on an assignment for his newspaper, and since then he has mostly lived abroad – in Paris, New York, Barcelona and Mexico – in a more or less compulsory exile.

Besides his large output of fiction he has written screenplays and has continued to work as a journalist.

Mercedes, who has been married to García Márquez for forty-one years, is a tall, striking woman with shoulder-length brown hair. She is the granddaughter of an Egyptian immigrant, whose influence seems to show up in her wide cheekbones and her large, penetrating brown eyes.

García Márquez is a short, deep-chested man with a careful, almost regal bearing. He is seventy-two. He has soft brown eyes set in a comfortable, lined face. His curly hair is gray, and he has a white mustache and bushy black eyebrows. His hands are beautiful, with long slender fingers. He is an attentive and charming conversationalist, and what Colombians call a mamagallista—a JOKER

Peter Stone met García Márquez for an interview and he wrote : "He came to greet me, walking briskly with a light step. He is a solidly built man, only about five feet eight or nine in height, who looks like a good middleweight fighter—broad-chested, but perhaps a bit thin in the legs. He was dressed casually in corduroy slacks with a light turtleneck sweater and black leather boots. His hair is dark and curly brown and he wears a full mustache."

INTERVIEWER

Since we’ve started talking about journalism, how does it feel being a journalist again, after having written novels for so long? Do you do it with a different feel or a different eye?

GARCÍA MÁRQUEZ

I’ve always been convinced that my true profession is that of a journalist. What I didn’t like about journalism before were the working conditions. Besides, I had to condition my thoughts and ideas to the interests of the newspaper. Now, after having worked as a novelist, and having achieved financial independence as a novelist, I can really choose the themes that interest me and correspond to my ideas. In any case, I always very much enjoy the chance of doing a great piece of journalism.