Gabriel Garci­a Marquez: The Early Years [Hardcover]

Ilan Stavans (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0312240333 | ISBN-13: 978-0312240332 | Publication Date: January 5, 2010 | Edition: 1

This long-awaited biography provides a fascinating and comprehensive picture of García Márquez's life up to the publication of his classic 100 Years of Solitude. Based on nearly a decade of research, this biographical study sheds new light on the life and works of the Nobel Laureate, father of magical realism, and bestselling author in the history of the Spanish language. As García Márquez's impact endures on well into his ninth decade, Stavans's keen insights constitute the definitive re-appraisal of the literary giant's life and corpus. The later part of his life will be covered in a second book.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this erudite biographical exploration of Gabriel García Márquez and his One Hundred Years of Solitude, Stavans follows García Márquez from his Colombian childhood in Aracataca through his time as law student and journalist, up to his screenwriting days in Mexico City. Stavans outlines the cultural, historical, and geographical factors that influenced the development of García Márquez's leftist politics and his view that 'good novels must be a poetic transposition of reality.' Stavans (Dictionary Days), Amherst College professor of Latin American and Latino culture, concludes that the Colombian author's contribution lies in his capacity to... renovate the novel as a literary genre, infusing it with ingredients indigenous to the Americas. This survey of García Márquez's literary heritage might prompt enthusiasts to further reading. (Jan.)
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Review

Praise for Gabriel García Márquez

“An engaging, informative study tracking the small beginnings of a literary giant and his magnum opus...Stavans enlightens us, not just about one literary figure, but about the culture and history of a whole hemisphere... Stavans is a magical writer himself.” -- Julia Alvarez, author of How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents and In the Time of the Butterflies, and Once Upon A Quinceañera: Coming of Age in the USA

“Stavan's style is clear and accessible, amazing detailed yet magnetically mesmerizing. He's a wonderfully skilled writer exploring the world of Garcia's Marquez's life and times-- what shaped his aesthetics, the forces that honed his social sensibilities and his literary influences; extraordinary-- a must-read.” – Jimmy Santiago Baca, author of A Glass of Water

“Ilan Stavans offers a vivid and humane account of Gabriel García Márquez and his world in the first four decades of his life, from the banana trains of his native Aracataca and the Caribbean...to his experience as a journalist in Europe, his belief in Hemingway’s power as a writer, and the surprise of One Hundred Years of Solitude and of his sudden emergence as a world-famous writer who would win the Nobel Prize.” – Werner Sollors, author of Beyond Ethnicity and Henry B. and Anne M. Cabot Professor of English Literature and Professor of African and African American Studies, Harvard University

Reading Ilan Stavans's Gabriel Garcia Marquez, The Early Years, I was reminded of Chekhov's observation that if you write a story about a man, a woman, and a beetle, the story is always about a man and a woman. In his compelling narrative of Garcia Marquez before the phenomenon of One hundred Years of Solitude, Ilan Stavans takes us on a fascinating guided tour of the great man's world from childhood to maturity, along the way, collecting the objects and the subjects, the beetles and the battles, all that would eventually coalesce into the vision of plenitude contained in one of the most influential novels in modern literary history. – Judith Ortiz Cofer, author of The Latin Deli and Regents’ and Franklin Professor of English, University of Georgia

Ilan Stavans has given us a wondrous rendering of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, who always wanted to be a magician, and ended up creating a magical kingdom in a tiny Caribbean town. Stavans displays his own magical hand in this muscular portrait of Garcia Marquez as a young man. – Jerome Charyn, author of The Secret Life Emily Dickinson

Praise for Ilan Stavans:

 

"One of the most influential figures in Latino literature in the United States."

--The New York Times

"Ilan Stavans is an intellectual force to reckon with."

--The Philadelphia Inquirer

"Ilan Stavans beautifully demonstrates that the best way to suggest the extraordinary is through the ordinary."

--The Boston Globe

"Ilan Stavans has emerged as Latin America's liveliest and boldest critic and most innovative cultural enthusiast."

--The Washington Post

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 237 pages
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan; 1 edition (January 5, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312240333
• ISBN-13: 978-0312240332
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,645,398 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "...an element of alchemy to his creation.", December 22, 2009

By 

K. M. "literary devotee" (California) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Gabriel Garci­a Marquez: The Early Years (Hardcover)

(What's this?)

The cover of Gabriel Garcia Marquez: The Early Years depicts a broken open pomegranate with its juice-laden seeds of a rich balaustine color. These brilliant red kernels, all bursting from one rind are potent imagery that can be likened to the fruits of a great writer who who may write many stories and novels but which all in some way promote one essential message. Garica Marquez once told someone, " 'a writer writes only one book, although the same book may appear in several volumes under different titles.' " Ilan Stavans, the prize-winning author or this brief look at Garcia Marquez (it is incomplete and impolite, Stavans writes, use only the final name, Marquez), is willing to run with that thesis. Stavans, who considers Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude to be one of only two Spanish-language masterpieces that "radically revamped our understanding of Hispanic civilization", shows that the make-believe town in the novel, Macondo, and its myriad characters are the culmination of years of percolation in Garcia Marquez's mind and in his previous published and unpublished writings. Stavans also makes the case that ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE was an inspired work: as Coleridge was divinely inspired to put down the lines of "Kubla Khan" so Garcia Marquez was inspired to pen, in eighteen months, this masterwork. However, Stavans suggests, "His inspiration didn't come from a divine source but from the injustice that surrounded him."

So, has Stavans written a biography or a literary criticism? Some of both. His own great admiration for ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE, which he read in a 24-hour marathon session when he was in his early twenties and calls his "aleph", has fired this synthesis of Garcia Marquez's work and life. By and large, Stavans is successful in this mission, although the attempted portrait of Garcia Marquez, the man, sometimes recedes into the enthusiasm with which Stavans analyzes his literary history and his creations.

Perhaps the most interesting chapter is "Sleepless in Macondo" which includes a lengthy excerpt from the earlier edition of The Dictionary of Imaginary Places: The Newly Updated and Expanded Classic, describing Macondo if one one could really enter it. Stavans adds, "After reading the novel, one feels that the town isn't an escapist's dream but is within reach. And its metabolism, in my view, carries in it the DNA of Latin America."

GABRIEL GARCIA MARQUEZ: THE EARLY YEARS will be more comprehensible to those thoroughly familiar with ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE and who are Spanish speakers (the latter because some Spanish phrases and titles are not translated into English). But these prerequisites are not mandatory for enjoyment and enlightenment. Stavans does give an early summary of the great novel: "[It] is about memory and forgetfulness, about the trials and tribulations of capitalism in a colonial society, about European explorers in the New World, about the clash of science and faith, about matriarchy as an institution...." There's more. And, of course, he discusses various aspects of it throughout the book. But he also provides insightful elucidation about the literary process, publishing, literature (South American and other), politics, human nature, and about Garcia Marquez's unique ability to create alchemy. For all these reasons, this is a very worthwhile read.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating look at Gabriel Garcia Marquez's early years., May 27, 2010

By 

Resips (CA, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Gabriel Garci­a Marquez: The Early Years (Hardcover)

(What's this?)

Ilan Stavans, a professor of Latin American and Latino Culture at Amherst College, has created a fascinating portrait of Garcia Marquez and his years leading up to the publication of his opus "One Hundred Years of Solitude."

I have been a Gabriel Garcia Marquez fan since I read "One Hundred Years of Solitude" many years ago. Stavans recounts how the early life of Garcia Marquez shaped him and gave him the inspiration to pen an astounding book.

Garcia Marquez was raised in Aracataca, Columbia by his maternal grandparents. His grandfather, Nicolás Ricardo Márquez Mejía, was reputed to be a great storyteller. Because many of his formative years were spent with his grandfather, many of his political and ideological views were informed by his grandfather's stories. Likewise, his grandmother, Doña Tranquilina Iguarán, a woman who believed in the supernatural, had a unique way of telling stories and influenced much of his writings.

When Garcia Marquez was eight years old, his grandfather died. He joined his parents and a younger brother who were living in Barranquilla. He eventually studied law at the University of Cartagena and honed his journalistic skills. He joined other writers in the Barranquilla Group and that provided inspiration and support for his literary efforts. "One Hundred Years of Solitude" was the product of those early years and it earned Garcia Marquez a Nobel Prize.

Garcia Marquez's early history is compelling and Stavans' book amply illustrates that history. It is well worth the time spent reading it.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ilan Stavans, Gabriel Garcia Marquez The Early Years, December 11, 2009

By 

Michael G. Lustig (NJ USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Gabriel Garci­a Marquez: The Early Years (Hardcover)

(What's this?)

In this fine book, Ilan Stavans, the prolific author and professor of Latin American and Latino Culture at Amherst College, discusses the first four decades of Garcia Marquez's life and work to the publication of his best selling One Hundred Years of Solitude. In the introduction, the author explains that his intent is not to do a full scale biography of Garcia Marquez but rather to explore "the background to One Hundred Years of Solitude: what prompted it and what were the conditions under which it was gestated?" In the first of a projected two volume biography, Stavans concentrates on Garcia Marquez's masterpiece, particularly how the author was able to "transform life into fiction." Stavans succeeds very well in this attempt.

While not a biography in the traditional sense, Stavans provides clues as to what prompted Garcia Marquez to write what Stavans considers to be one of only two "masterpieces written in Spanish," the other being Don Quixote. Stavans explores Garcia Marquez's birth and childhood in Aracataca, his career as a law student, journalist, and then as a screenwriter in Mexico City. Garcia Marquez's experiences shaped his thoughts, Stavans claims, particularly his childhood in Aracataca which lies "in the northwestern region of South America as well as the lower edge of the Caribbean basin," the location making him feel as if "he was part of two worlds." This cultural conflict influenced Garcia Marquez's politics and led him to write "with ingredients indigenous to the Americas."

Stavans, in exploring the thoughts and intentions of one man, manages to also convey the history and emotions of a whole hemisphere as well as those of Garcia Marquez's family and friends. This well written book goes far in explaining the forces that influenced the author and is certainly worth reading by the many people who were captivated by One Hundred Years of Solitude (P.S.).