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Birth
On Sunday, March 6, at nine o'clock in the morning, at the point of death by hanging by the umbilical cord, Gabriel José García Márquez was born in Aracataca, a town in the department of Magdalena, in the Caribbean region of Colombia. -
Baptism
On July 27th the priest Francisco C. Angarita baptizes him in the Parish of San José de Aracataca. -
Montessori School
He begins his formal studies at the Montessori School, with teacher Rosa Elena Fergusson. Due to administrative issues, the school closes in the middle of the year, and Gabo has to repeat first grade. His first hobby was drawing, especially copying the comic strips he took from his grandfather's newspapers. -
Law
On February 25 he travels to Bogotá and enrolls as a law student at the National University of Colombia. He moved to a boarding house for coastal students in downtown Bogota, on Florian Street, near the corner of Avenida Jimenez and Carrera VIII. Not very interested in the subjects of his career, he spends his time talking about literature with his classmate, Luis Villar Borda. -
The Colonel has no one to write to him
From January 1 to 23, the fall of Marcos Pérez Jiménez as dictator of Venezuela takes place in Caracas. These are days of political tension and frenetic work, including a raid on the magazine's headquarters.
In the May-June issue, the magazine Mito, of Bogota, publishes The Colonel has no one to write to him. -
One Hundred Years of Solitude
On May 30, Editorial Sudamericana finishes printing the first edition of Cien años de Soledad in Buenos Aires and on June 5 it is released and sells 500,000 copies in Latin America in the following three years, becoming an international bestseller. He signs 18 translation contracts. In August he visits Buenos Aires where his masterpiece has achieved a disproportionate success. It is at this moment that his life as a famous writer begins. -
Chronicle of a death announced
On January 23 Excélsior reported that more than one million copies of the novel Crónica de una muerte anunciada had been sold in Latin America and that it had been translated into thirty-one languages. The publisher Oveja Negra recorded the largest print run in history for a Latin American novel. In February, Gabo and Mercedes (his wife) returned to Colombia and settled in Cartagena. -
Nobel Prize
On Thursday, October 21, at 5:59 a.m. Pierre Shori calls him at his home in Mexico to announce that he has been elected winner of that year's Nobel Prize in Literature. On Wednesday, December 8, at 5:00 p.m., he reads "The Loneliness of Latin America", his Nobel Prize acceptance speech. -
Love in the time of cholera
Love in the Time of Cholera is published on December 5. -
Memory of my sad whores
In March he attends as special guest to the assembly of the Inter American Press Association, SIP, in Los Cabos, Baja California, Mexico. Publishes the novel Memory of my Sad Whores, his last book of fiction. Returns to Monterrey in August to present the Homage Award to Brazilian Clóvis Rossi and the winners of the third edition. -
Goodbye to the yellow butterflies
On April 17, Easter Thursday, Gabriel García Márquez dies at noon at his home in Mexico City at the age of 87, surrounded by his entire family, following the aggravation of respiratory complications that had forced his hospitalization after his birthday. This announcement spread through the media and social networks in many languages and countries, generating a worldwide tribute with few precedents.
