Liputan6.com, Jakarta Google merayakan ulang tahun penulis asal Kolombia, Gabriel García Márquez yang ke-91 melalui Google Doodle.
One of the most popular Spanish-language writers in the world, and the best-known practitioner of magical realism, Gabriel Garcia Marquez would have been 91 on March 6.
Affectionately known as Gabo, Marquez is also known as "the greatest Colombian who ever lived". He was a novelist, poet, short-story writer, screenwriter and journalist.
In 1982 Gabo became the first Colombian and only the fourth Latin American author to win the Nobel Prize in literature.
Marquez' life was not always easy, as he had some serious health issues. At the age of 85, he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's after fighting a long battle against lymphatic cancer which he was diagnosed with in 1999.
This is his story:
History and reality
Marquez was born in the town of Aracataca in 1927, and grew up with his maternal grandparents, Tranquilina Iguaran and Colonel Nicolas Ricardo Marquez, until he left to attend school in the capital, Bogota.
His grandfather was a colonel who killed a man in a duel; he had three legitimate and an unknown number of illegitimate children.
Marquez remembered something his grandfather told him: "you can't imagine how much a dead man weighs", and later integrated that lesson into his novels.
The Colonel, whom Garcia Marquez described as his "umbilical cord with history and reality", was also an excellent storyteller.
You can't imagine how much a dead man weighs Colonel Nicolas Ricardo Marquez
Always a journalist
Marquez studied law but never received a degree. He instead chose the path of journalism in El Espectador.
The late 1940s and early '50s in Colombia were a period of civil unrest, which left as many as 300,000 people dead. This era would become the background for several of his novels.
The political unrest sent Garcia Marquez back to the coast, to the town of Cartagena de Indias, where he continued writing.
He wanted to stay close to the real world, a journalist who wrote fiction. Leaf Storm, his first novella, was written in 1955 when he was only 27 years old.
"I'm a journalist. I've always been a journalist,'' he told the Associated Press news agency. "My books couldn't have been written if I weren't a journalist because all the material was taken from reality.''
An iconic writer with iconic books! Happy Birthday, Gabriel Garcia Marquez. #HappyBirthdayMarquez pic.twitter.com/YNGgAunnj5 — Penguin India (@PenguinIndia) March 6, 2018
Influences
Marquez read intensely; he is known to have read the American writers Hemingway, Faulkner, Twain and Melville; as well as the European writers Dickens, Tolstoy, Proust, Kafka and Virginia Woolf.
"I cannot imagine how anyone could even think of writing a novel without having at least a vague of idea of the 10,000 years of literature that have gone before," Marquez said.
But he was as impressed by Western Europe as many other Latin American writers, and he often expressed his belief that Europeans were patronising Latin America.
Europeans, he said in his Nobel address, "insist on measuring us with the yardstick that they use for themselves, forgetting that the ravages of life are not the same for all, and that the quest for our own identity is just as arduous and bloody for us as it was for them".
The quest for our own identity is just as .. bloody for us as it was for them Garcia Marquez, author
Journalism and fiction
Marquez started alternating between journalism and fiction in the late 1950s.
In 1961, he moved to Mexico City where he would live on and off for the rest of his life.
After four years of not writing fiction, the author began writing One Hundred Years of Solitude, which was inspired while he was driving to Acapulco in Mexico.
Once he returned to his home, he started an 18-month journey, during which he wrote non-stop while his wife Mercedes looked after the household.
Published in 1967, One Hundred Years of Solitude sold out within days.
The author penned over 25 books, transporting readers into a world of magical realism, infusing otherwise ordinary situations with magical elements.
Left-wing causes
He used his name, time and money to support left-wing causes.
He was a defender of the Sandinistas, and for over three decades, the US denied him a visa to travel there. They believed he was a member of the Colombian Communist Party, a suspicion bolstered by his friendship with Fidel Castro.
His shorter pieces dealt with subjects including Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, while the book, News of a Kidnapping, portrayed how cocaine traffickers, led by Pablo Escobar, worked in his native Colombia.
After receiving his cancer diagnosis, Marquez spent his time writing his memoirs, his only other work during this time was one novella that describes the love affair between an old man and a prostitute.
Marquez died at the age of 87 at his home in Mexico City.
Recognition
MACONDO adalah sebuah kota fiksi yang ada dalam novel 'A Hundred Years of Solitude'. Sebuah karya agung penulis asal Kolombia Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
Kota Macondo yang penuh magis, dengan indah dilukiskan dalam Google D oodle hari ini, Selasa, 6 Maret 2018. Hari ini merupakan hari lahir Marquez, yang meninggal pada 17 April 2014 silam di usia 87 tahun.
Pria yang dikenal dengan panggilan sayang Gabo , di Amerika Latin tersebut tutup usia karena menderita gangguan pernafasan dan infeksi air seni.
Lahir di Aracataca, Kolombia, Gabo dianggap sebagai salah satu penulis paling penting di abad ke-20. Peraih nobel Kesusastraan itu telah menulis lebih dari 25 buku. Karya-karyanya secara luar biasa mampu membawa pembacanya ke dalam dunia realisme magis sehingga merasa berada di daerah tropis yang lembab.
Istilah realisme magis muncul karena gaya bertuturnya yang hidup dengan cerita mencampurkan kenyataan dan hal gaib. Selain itu ia juga menggunakan Bahasa Spanyol.
Hal ini yang coba dilukiskan Google Doodle hari ini. Dalam keterangannya, Google menggambarkan doodle tersebut sebagai kota Macondo di tengah hutan Amazon yang lebat. Menembus celah kanopi hutan hujan yang lembab, tampaklah kota cermin. Kota yang merupakan rumah bagi keluarga Buendia, dan tempat lahirnya berbagai keajaiban.
Mulai dari ikan kecil yang terbuat dari emas, kupu-kupu kuning raksasa, hingga kereta yang mendesis merdu di bawa ' Blue Moon '. Satu-satunya tamu disana hanyalah sosok gipsi misteris yang meriwayatkan berbagai cerita aneh.
Keberanian Gabo yang tajam dalam mengangkat isu politik, menjadi salah satu alasan karya-karya non-fiksinya sangat fasih mendokumentasikan masa-masa dimana ia hidup. Salah satunya adalah berita tentang penculikan, yang menjadi satu cerita Gabo paling terkenal.
Meski telah tiada, Gabriel Garcia Marquez tetap menjadi ikon budaya yang terus bersinar di dunia sastra dan jurnalistik terutama di Amerika Latin.
Peraih Nobel Sastra pada 1982, Gabriel Garcia Marquez memang mumpuni dalam menulis fiksi dan nonfiksi. Kemampuan Garcia Marquez dalam menyajikan tulisan-tulisannya selalu menarik perhatian. Dalam beberapa karyanya, García Marquez juga memasukkan realitas yang ditemuinya sebagai jurnalis.
Tak heran jika dunia ikut berduka saat Garcia Marquez meninggal 17 April 2014 lalu. Karya-karya sastranya memuat potret sosial, politik, dan berbagai persoalan lainnya. Kemampuannya sebagai jurnalis juga berpengaruh pada tulisan-tulisannya yang tajam. Dikutip dari The Guardian, ada lima novelnya yang wajib dibaca.
One Hundred Years of Solitude 1967
One Hundred Years of Solitude mencatat tujuh generasi keluarga Buendía di desa Macondo. Novel ini berkisah tentang gipsi kenabian dan pasangan kekasih yang melanggar adat desa itu. Novel ini merupakan buku yang paling cepat laris dalam waktu sekejap. Buku ini pula yang meluncurkan Garcia Marquez pada ketenaran di seluruh dunia. Novel ini pula yang memicu perkembangan pesat literatur Amerika Latin.
The Autumn of the Patriarch 1975
Gabriel Garcia Marquez menghabiskan sepuluh tahun untuk meneliti kediktatoran Pinilla hingga Trujillo dan dari Franco hingga Peron. Kemudian dia mencoba untuk melupakan semua yang telah dia dengar dan baca untuk menciptakan kisah yang dia buat dengan gayanya sendiri, "Sang Jenderal Semesta Alam".
Novel ini dibuka dengan ditemukannya jenazah tiran yang tewas di lantai istana kepresidenan. Tiran ini lebih tua dari semua pria tua dan semua hewan tua di darat atau lautan. Garcia Marquez mengeksplorasi rusaknya moral dan lumpuhnya politik. Dia menyebutnya dengan "puisi tentang kesendirian kekuasaan" (poem on the solitude of power).
Love in the Time of Cholera 1985
Terinspirasi dari masa pacaran orang tuanya sendiri, Love in the Time of Cholera menceritakan bagaimana cinta antara Florentino Arizo dan Fermina Daza. Hubungan keduanya digagalkan oleh pernikahan Fermina dengan seorang dokter yang mencoba membasmi kolera.
The General in his Labyrinth 1989
Novel ini mengisahkan masa-masa dalam bulan terakhir kehidupan Simon Bolívar. Simon Bolivar orang yang membebaskan Kolombia dari Spanyol pada awal abad ke-19. Novel ini menyebabkan badai di Amerika Selatan ketika pertama kali diterbitkan.
Garcia Marquez memetakan perjalanan pemimpin revolusioner dari Bogota ke pantai Kolombia. Dia melukiskan potret seorang pria yang kelelahan secara fisik dan mental. Potret ini mencerminkan kenangan akan konflik dan perjuangannya.
News of a Kidnapping 1996
García Marquez terus bekerja sebagai jurnalis. Alasannya pekerjaan ini membuatnya tetap berhubungan dengan dunia nyata. Dalam novelnya ini pula, Garcia Marquez melihat kembali serentetan penculikan yang dilakukan kartel Medellín Cartel Kolombia Pablo Escobar pada 1990-an.***
