TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The legendary Colombian writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez is being celebrated by Google on what would have been his 91st birthday.
He is considered one of the world's most significant authors and pens works of fiction that lures readers into a world of magical realism.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez was a Colombian novelist who was affectionately known as Gabo throughout Latin America.
He is considered to be one of the Spanish language's greatest ever writers and was awarded the Nobel Price in Literature in 1982.
He was born on March 6, 1927, in Aracataca in Colombia. His parents moved away when he was young and so it was his grandparents that shaped his early years.
His grandmother, in particular, liked to "treat the extraordinary as something perfectly natural" and she became the source of Gabriel's knowledge of the magical, superstitious and supernatural view of the world.
This upbringing and her deadpan delivery of the fantastic and improbable heavily influenced Gabriel's most popular novel, One Hundred Years of Solitude.
His career in journalism began while he was studying law at the National University of Colombia - from there he fell in love with writing and became very involved in national politics. Gabriel was a "committed leftist" throughout his life.
Gabriel had always wanted to write a novel based on his grandparents' house where he grew up. After eighteen months of writing, this became One Hundred Years of Solitude. It went on to sell more than 30 million copies around the world.
With his newfound fame, Gabriel became a facilitator between the Colombian government and guerrilla rebels and became friends with powerful leaders like Fidel Castro. He called his relationship with Castro as an "intellectual friendship".
Gabriel passed away aged 87 on April 17, 2014 in Mexico City.
Upon his death, Juan Manuel Santos, the President of Colombia, called Gabriel "the greatest Colombian who ever lived."
THE SUN