Gabo is 80...

My favorite author of all time, and arguably one of the most influential writers of the 20th century, Gabriel Garcia Marquez turned 80 today. 2007 is also remarkably 40th anniversary of his masterpiece 100 Years of Solitude, a book where he writes the history of the human civilization while masterfully ornamenting the story with magical happenings like a beautiful girl who simply is taken back to heaven because of their beauty, or a drought lasting 8 years, and 25th anniversary of his Nobel Literature prize.

A Colombian friend once told me a TV interview of the master where he likened his writings to cooking a soup of words, stirring the soup and tasting it and carefully adding words to reach the correct taste. It is exactly how I felt about his books, his words inspire complex tastes in my body...

From his stories such as "Nabo, the Man Who Made the Angels Wait"- which tells of a black boy who refuses to die to sing- "Blacaman the Good, the Vendor of Miracles" - the sad magician who can raise the dead- to his great novels such as "The General in His Labyrinth" - the story of the last days of Simon Bolivar-, "The Autumn of The Patriarch" -the story of a South American dictator who sells the ocean to the foreigners- or "Of Love and Other Deamons" -the story of a lover girl, who's hair grew after she was locked and died in a monastery away from her love- Marquez and his virtually magical play with the words has influenced me more than any other writer. I've read all his work, and to learn that he has given a creative break and hasn't written a single line this year makes me sad, but knowing that he owns much of his creativity to his grand mother and grand aunts who could not stop telling stories after they were 80, I am sure he will deliver the world with more great works...

Happy Birthday Gabo.

Endnote: He is the writer that writes the most beautiful death scenes by far. "Of Love and Other Deamons" and "The General in His Labryinth" are