Today’s Google Doodle is honouring acclaimed Colombian author Gabriel Garcia Marquez on what would have been his 91st birthday. The Economic Times calls him “one of the greatest writers of the Spanish language”.
Once affectionately dubbed "the greatest Colombian who ever lived", Marquez is most well known for his work in the genre of magical realism, in which “the mundane and the fantastic occur with equal plausibility”, says Time magazine.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
After 18 months of writing, Marquez published a novel inspired by his grandparents’ home where he grew up, A Hundred Years of Solitude. The book quickly became a bestseller, selling more than 30 million copies world-wide.
Today’s Google Doodle depicts the lush forests of the Amazonian jungle and the magical city of Macondo from A Hundred Years of Solitude. The Doodle contains details from Marquez’s novel including the city of mirrors and golden fish.
“We have had to ask but little of imagination, for our crucial problem has been a lack of conventional means to render our lives believable,” he said in his acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize in Literature he won in 1982.
Throughout his career, Marquez at least 25 books including The Autumn of the Patriarch and Love in the Time of Cholera.
Garcia Marquez died in his home in Mexico in 2014 at the age of 87.
-
The week’s best photosIn Pictures Ready for lift-off, the odd one out, and more
-
The Week Unwrapped: Have pedigree dogs had their day?Podcast Plus what can we learn from Slovenia’s rejection of assisted dying? And can politicians admit their weaknesses?
-
4 often overlooked home maintenance tasks that could cost you laterThe Explainer A little upkeep now can save you money down the road
-
Brazil’s Bolsonaro behind bars after appeals run outSpeed Read He will serve 27 years in prison
-
Americans traveling abroad face renewed criticism in the Trump eraThe Explainer Some of Trump’s behavior has Americans being questioned
-
Nigeria confused by Trump invasion threatSpeed Read Trump has claimed the country is persecuting Christians
-
What is Donald Trump planning in Latin America?Today’s Big Question US ramps up feud with Colombia over drug trade, while deploying military in the Caribbean to attack ships and increase tensions with Venezuela
-
Sanae Takaichi: Japan’s Iron Lady set to be the country’s first woman prime ministerIn the Spotlight Takaichi is a member of Japan’s conservative, nationalist Liberal Democratic Party
-
Russia is ‘helping China’ prepare for an invasion of TaiwanIn the Spotlight Russia is reportedly allowing China access to military training
-
Interpol arrests hundreds in Africa-wide sextortion crackdownIN THE SPOTLIGHT A series of stings disrupts major cybercrime operations as law enforcement estimates millions in losses from schemes designed to prey on lonely users
-
China is silently expanding its influence in American citiesUnder the Radar New York City and San Francisco, among others, have reportedly been targeted
