Colombia’s cherished Nobel laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez was honored posthumously in Rome at an event celebrating his life’s work and love of cinema, Colombian media reported on Wednesday.
The event, “Gabo’s Nostalgia and his Love for Neo-realist Cinema,” took place at the Casa del Cinema in Rome and was put-on by the Colombian Embassy in Italy, according to Colombia’s El Espectador newspaper.
“Gabo always loved the world of neo-realism. He didn’t study film, but he loved the cinema almost as much as literature,” said Colombia’s ambassador to Italy, Juan Sebastian Betancur.
Gathered in Rome for the event were many writers, directors, and producers who all paid tribute to Colombia’s beloved author whose work has been translated into several films including “Love in the Time of Cholera,” “Chronicle of a Death Foretold,” and his most renowned, “One Hundred Years of Solitude.”
Earlier this month, the Nobel laureate was honored in the Colombian Embassy in Australia, according to Bogota’s national paper, El Tiempo. In May, Marquez was honored at a book fair in Madrid, Spain.
The author is known for putting Spanish literature on the map and for exploring magical realism in his writing by including magical elements in a story that had an otherwise realistic environment.
The Nobel Prize-winner is best known for his 1967 book, “One Hundred Years of Solitude,” which brings the reader through a century in a town that at first had no contact with the outside world but then opened up with endless wars and changes in government. The book has been translated into dozens of languages and has sold 30 million copies, according to The Wall Street Journal.
MORE: Colombia’s beloved author Gabriel Garcia Marquez honored at the Madrid Book Fair
Marquez was born in Aracataca, Colombia and was partially raised by his grandparents before he ventured into law school. Later on, he became a journalist before becoming an author, according to the Guardian.
In finding his writing style, Marquez said he hit the “right tone” and found a style “based on the way my grandmother used to tell her stories” when he spoke to the Paris Review in 1981.
Marquez died of infections at the age of 87 in his home in Mexico City in April of this year.
When he died in April, major leaders spoke out with condolences.
Barack Obama said the world had lost “one of its greatest visionary writers” while Colombia’s President Juan Manuel Santos tweeted, “Such giants never die.”
Sources
- Gabriel García Márquez es homenajeado en Roma (El Espectador)
- Australia rindió tributo a Gabriel García Márquez (El Tiempo)
- Gabriel García Márquez, Nobel laureate writer, dies aged 87 (The Guardian)
- Gabriel García Márquez, Nobel Prize-Winning Author, Dies (The Wall Street Journal)