Marquez was born on March 6, 1927 in Aracataca, Colombia to Gabriel Eligio Garcia and Luisa Santiaga Marquez. He was raised by his grandparents until he was eight, when his grandfather died and he moved in with his parents in the town of Baranquilla. His grandfather, who had been a Colonel, was an excellent storyteller and greatly influenced the young Gabriel with his political and ideological views. His grandmother also told stories, but of a different sort. She would tell stories of ghosts and omens as if they were the absolute truth- the roots of Marquez's magical realism.
In 1940, Marquez attended the boarding school of San Jose in Baranquilla, even though his family had moved to Sucre. In 1943, he won a scholarship to attend private school, and in 1947 he began to study law at the National University of Colombia. During this time period, Marquez began to read works by European authors, such as The Metamorphosis, that would greatly influence his career. His first short story, The Third Resignation, was published that September. By 1950, Marquez had quit law school and became a full-time journalist, first writing for the El Heraldo newspaper in Baranquilla.
Over the remainder of his life, Marquez has published several books, novellas, and collections of short stories. His most famous book, One Hundred Years of Solitude, won him the Nobel Prize for Literature and the Romulo Gallegos prize for literature in 1972. In addition, his outspoken criticisms of imperialism earned him no end of notoriety with the United States, and immigration officers regularly denied him visas. However, his ban was lifted when Clinton, who claimed that One Hundred Years of Solitude was his favortie book, was elected president.
Marquez married Mercedes Barcha in 1958, and has two sons: Rodrigo and Gonzalo.