Gabriel Garcia Marquez Receives the 1982 Nobel Prize in Literature

Gabriel Garcih Mfirquez Receives the 1982 Nobel Prize in Literature Number 16 Awil 16, 1984 It surprises most readers of Current But in these exercises, we perceive Contents@ (C@ ) to learn that ISP our role as that of an investigative jour- covers the arts and humanities litera- nalist. With considerable help from ture. Obviously, readers of CC/Arts & many 1S1 colleagues, we have discussed Humanities (CC/A&H) know that we the significant work of each of the Nobel do. Nevertheless, as far as these essays prizewinners in science, economics, and are concerned, CC/A&H readers must literature since 1979. l-s We are covering often feel that we neglect their interests. the 1982 awards in five separate The fact is, however, that our readers in essays.4-6 Recently, we discussed the the sciences outnumber those in the hu- work of economist George J. Stigler.T manities by at least 100 to one, This ratio This concluding essay for the 1982 may not be characteristic of the typical awards discusses the prize in literature. academic institution, but it is a fact of Garcia Mfirquez was honored for his life we cannot ignore. stories about the imaginary village of I say thk by way of introducing thk Macondo. These stories reflect, with be- atypical essay about an important liter- wildering, surrealistic, yet convincing ary figure. From long experience, I have authenticity, the human riches and pov- learned that even the most single-mind- erty of Latin America. g ed organic chemist or engineer may ap- The Nobel prize in literature is award- preciate an occasional reminder that ed annually by the Swedish Academy in there is something in the world besides Stockholm. The academy is the literary science or technology. Furthermore, I counterpart of the Royal Swedish Acad- like to remind them that there are im- emy of Sciences, which presents the portant connections between the two awards in chemistry and physics. The cultures. And besides, 1S1 is also the Swedwh Academy’s literature selections purveyor of A rts & Humanities Citation have sometimes been the subject of criti- Index ‘“ (A&HCI ‘“ ) and Social Sciences cism and debate in the past. Certainly, Citation Index@ (SSCP ). These tools not all of the literature prizewinners are permit us to study scholars in a unique among those writers most often cited in way. They also provide me with the the scholarly literature. But it should be hubris to comment upon a figure such as pointed out that the output of even great Gabriel JOS6 Garcia Mfmquez. Of artists and writers may be more erratic course, there will be some readers who than that of Nobel laureates in the sci- will feel that this essay is no more daring ences, who are generally known for the than my forays into other fields in which steady production of important articles I am not an expert. throughout their careers. For example, 113 Elias Canetti, the 1981 literature prize- most 120 cited the English transit- winner, published his first novel, Die ions, whale the rest were divided among Mersdung (Auto-da-F6),9 in 1935. But French, Itafian, Russian, German, and between 1938 and 1960, he published al- Portuguese versions. Over 80 citations most nothing at all. 10It is unsurprising, came from journals published in therefore, that he did not appear in our Spanish. study of the 100 most-cited literary fig- The number of citations to Garc;a ures of the twentieth century. 1I M5rquez’s work is unusually high for a But the Nobel prize itself often serves literary author. But it is especially so for as a spur to scholarship concerning the one publishing primarily in Spanish, winner. Indeed, it is common for literary since neither the A&HCI nor the SSCI authors to become increasingly cited as claims to be comprehensive for Spanish- their work is studied and appreciated by language journals. Even so, his best- scholars. Thus, literature Laureates may known work, Cien A7ios de Soledad eventually become highly cited. In Ca- (One Hundred Years of Solitude), netti’s case, most of the 100 citations to 1967,12 which has sold ten million copies his work came in the period just prior to in 32 languages, has been cited over 175 and immediately after his selection for times since 1967 in various editorials, in- the literature prize. This isnot to imply terviews, critiques, book reviews, notes, that citation data do not have validity in and biographical items. One hundred of the humanities. Among the 100 most- these citations were to the Spanish-lan- cited literary authors in our last study, 11 guage edition, 65 to the English, and the 24 have already been awarded the Nobel rest divided among the French, Ger- prize. Many more are still eligible. man, Italian, and Russian versions. Over No elaborate explanations, however, 50 came from Spanish-language jour- are required to justify the selection of nals. In the discussion that follows, we Garcia M4rquez as the 1982 literature have indicated the number of citations prizewinner. You might even say that we received by each of Garc{a M6rquez’s told you so much in previous essays. The novels and certain of his other works. world’s best-selling author in the Spanish All data were obtained from the A&HCI language, Garcia M5rquez was identi- and SSCI data bases. fied as eligible for the Nobel prize in our Garcfa Mfirquez was born on March study of the twentieth century’s most- 6, 1928, in the village of Aracataca, near cited literary figures. 1J the northern Caribbean coast of Colom- Much of Garc{a Mfirquez’s writing is bia. The eldest of 16 chddren, he was political satire, and has aroused interest raised until age eight by his maternal in scholars throughout the world. Not grandparents. His grandmother’s stones surprisingly then, citations to his work of ghosts, spirits, and ancestors, com- are not restricted to scholars in the hu- bined with the military tales of his grand- manities. Social scientists often refer to father, a retired army colonel, greatly in- his stones as well. Thus, according to fluenced Garcia M6rquez’s develop- A&HCI and SSCI, Garcfa Mtirquez has ment as a writer. been explicitly cited over 300 times since His first efforts at writing came at the 1966, the earliest year for which such age of five, when he was given a toy data are available. Almost 20 percent of printing press. Little hindered by his in- these citations were found in social ability to spell, Garcia M6rquez turned sciences journals. Over 175 were to the out a page of gibberish daily, which he original Spanish-language editions. Al- sold to his indulgent grandfather for one 114 centavo. Later, he began to write down the tuneral of a reclusive village physi- his grandparents’ stones in comic strip cian and the desire of the town’s citizens form. In high school, Garcia M&rquez to avenge themselves on his corpse for a acquired a reputation as a writer, al- wrong they believe he committed. Ac- though he “never in fact wrote anything” cording to many literary critics, the of consequence, as he put it in a 1981 in- complexity of Leaf Sto rm’s narrative and terview for the literary journal Paris Re- its gothic phrasing and atmosphere are view. 13Still, he continued, “If there was clearly Faulknerian. 16-18So too is the a pamphlet to be written or a letter of imaginary village of Macondo, intro- petition, I was the one to do it because I duced in this story, which is often com- was supposedly the writer. ” It wasn’t un- pared to Faulkner’s “Yoknapatawpha til Garcia M6rquez read Franz Kafka’s County.” However, according to Peru- The Metamorphosis14 in 1946, while at- vian writer Mario Vargas Llosa, author tending the University of Bogota, that he of perhaps the most searching and au- began writing seriously. His first short thoritative critical study of Garcia M5r- story was published a year later in the quez’s work to date, 19Garc;a Mfirquez’s literature supplement of the Bogotfi stories are far more accessible to the newspaper El Espectador. average reader than many of Faulkner’s On April 9, 1948, the assassination in works. They benefh from an exuber- Bogota of a national political leader ant sense of humor wholly absent touched off a civil war that sputtered for from Faulkner’s stories. 19Vargas Llosa, a decade. Referred to as la vio[encia, the a great novelist in his own right, is war bled the country and took the lives best known for his novels, The Green of perhaps 300,000 people. The war af- House~Q and Conversation in the fected Garcfa M6rquez deeply, politiciz- Cathedral. 21 ing his writing and serving as source ma- While writing Leaf .Storm in 1955, terial for three books, including One Garcfa M5rquez moved back to Bogotfi Hundred Years of Solitude. and took a job as a film critic and report- The war forced Garcfa M5rquez to er for EIEspectador, which continued to leave Bogot5 for Cartagena, where he publish his short stories over the years. resumed his studies and took up journal- During the year of Leaf Storm’s publica- ism. In 1950, he moved to Barranquilla, tion, he was assigned to a beat in Europe where he wrote a column for the daily El that eventually took him to Paris. There Heraldo. The experience of rubbing he wrote La Mala Hera (In Evil Hour),22 elbows with other journalists and writers which he made little effort to have pub- in local caf~s and bookstores continued lished.

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