The Threefold Selves in García Márquez’s Writing

Abstract

Abstract This study examines the evolution and interaction of writerly, autobiographical, and testimonial selves in García Márquez’s work by concentrating on a select number of texts from 1955 to 2004. Three factors contribute to the role of these selves in his writing: (1) the author states in his memoir that he realized at an early age that he only wanted to be a writer; (2) From the publication of One Hundred Years of Solitude in 1967 to the end of his life, he remained universally loved by readers and critics; and (3) the use of the refrito, or follow-up story, in his investigative journalism for El Espectador in the 1950s in Bogotá became an integral part of his writing. Although the interplay of his writerly, autobiographical, and testimonial selves appears at different moments in his fiction as well as his nonfiction, he achieves the most intricate balance between the three in Chronicle of a Death Foretold. While his writerly self overshadows his autobiographical and testimonial selves, they nevertheless play a prominent and essential role in his writing, albeit in hybridized forms.