One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967)

Abstract

But the next novel would be excruciatingly difficult to write. After the battle of the Bay of Pigs, and despite the triumph of the Revolution, Garcia Marquez left Prensa Latina following increasing difficulties with the communist hardliners. He took his family to Mexico City where the first thing he wrote, shortly after his arrival in Mexico, was a long article in homage to Hemingway. This essay, ‘A man has died a natural death’, was published on 9 July 1961 in the literary supplement of one of Mexico’s leading newspapers. How could he or anyone else have imagined that this first article would also be almost the last serious and significant newspaper piece that he, a born journalist, would write for thirteen years? Mexico turned out to be a difficult arena for a foreign journalist, and in the end he found himself working for a time as director of two popular magazines, The Family ( La Familia ), a women’s-interest magazine, and Stories for Everyone ( Sucesos para Todos ), a very Mexican crime and scandal sheet. Within weeks Garcia Marquez, a great professional, had improved the layout, the style and the mix of both the magazines. But they contained no serious subject matter. After that he turned to producing film scripts – a lifelong ambition and commitment – but wrote no more journalism until 1974. No novels crystallised. He did, however, write a landmark story.