Abriel Garcia Marquez was and remains Latin America’s best-known writer， spinning epic tales since the 1940s， the master of a style known as magic realism.

He started out as a newspaper reporter， and journalism remained a passion throughout his life， as did support for left-wing politics. It was that mix of real life and the bizarre that gave birth to the literary genre known as magic realism. It reached its peak of popularity in his most famous novel， One Hundred Years of Solitude， which tells of the extraordinary events of one family in a small town remarkably similar to the one where he grew up.

（The first line from One Hundred Years of Solitude）

Many years later， as he faced the firing squad， Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.

Martin： The first two lines， the first time you read them， you just felt： I’ve read this before. Where does this come from？—which is what he felt when he first， himself， thought up the first line of the book.

By the time Gabriel Garcia Marquez won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1982， he was already an internationally acclaimed writer. The Colombian author’s works had already been published in multiple languages.

Garcia Marquez was among what’s known as Latin America’s literature boom of the 1960s and’70s， along with Mexican writer Carlos Fuentes and Peruvian author Mario Vargas Llosa， with whom Garcia Marquez differed sharply in his political beliefs. The Colombian got his leftist leanings from his grandfather. They， too， shaped his writing.

Marquez： （via translator） I write mostly about the reality I know， about the reality of Latin America. Any interpretation of this reality in literature must be political. I cannot escape my own ideology when I interpret reality in my books; it’s inseparable.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez titled his 1982 Nobel Prize acceptance speech “The Solitude of Latin America.”

Marquez： （via translator） We， the inventors of tales， who will believe anything， feel entitled to believe that it is not yet too late to engage in the creation of a new and sweeping utopia of life.

Ariel Dorfman（Chilean Writer）： Garcia Marquez is speaking about all the people who are marginal to history， who have not had a voice. He gives a voice to all those who died. He gives a voice to all those who are not born yet. He gives a voice to Latin America.

加夫列爾·加西亚·马尔克斯曾经是，也一直是拉丁美洲最有名的作家。他从上世纪四十年代开始创作史诗般的宏大故事，他是魔幻现实主义创作流派的大师。

他从一名报社的记者起步。在他的一生中，新闻始终是他钟爱的职业;同时，他对左派政治的支持也一如既往。正是现实生活与种种荒诞的交织成就了魔幻现实主义这一文学流派，这个流派随着他最出名的作品《百年孤独》的面世而大受追捧。该书讲述了一个家族在小镇上非同寻常的经历，故事中的小镇与马尔克斯成长的地方有着惊人的相似之处。

马尔克斯于1967年出版的《百年孤独》让他在文坛上一举成名。在作者的有生之年，该书在全世界的销量超过三千万本，他的作品引起了公众对魔幻现实主义这个拉丁美洲文学流派的关注，现实世界与虚构世界在魔幻现实主义的作品中发生碰撞，以至于读者难以分清彼此。

杰拉尔德·马丁（马尔克斯的传记作者）：你必须身处二十世纪六十年代，生活在甲壳虫乐队风靡一时，第三世界革命风起云涌，人们服用迷幻药，诸多事情相继发生的年代，这样你才能明白这本书第一页的内容有着怎样的震撼力。当时，似乎所有人都在期待着这类作品的诞生，只是直到作品面世，人们才意识到自己对它的期待。这是当时的一股思潮。

（《百年孤独》的第一句话）

多年以后，奥雷连诺上校站在行刑队面前，会想起父亲带他去见识冰块的那个遥远的下午。……