Beatriz Aldana
Professor: Michael Maggio
Eng 112
February 15th, 2019
Fidel Castro´s Influence Over Gabriel Garcia Marquez Works
“One Hundred Years of Solitude” The most recognized novel by writer Gabriel Garcia
Marquez, is a masterpiece of magical realism, a world where magical elements blend with
reality. Garcia Marquez is considered the pioneer of this literary genre and is admired for his
style. However, behind this admiration there is also a strong criticism for his close friendship
with the Cuban leader Fidel Castro. Was the style of Garcia Marquez really influenced by Fidel
Castro or is a baseless criticism of the opponents of the Cuban regime
Yes, is a fact that the literary style of the writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez was influenced
by the political events that surrounded his life and by the story that his grandfather told him since
he was a child. Garcia Marquez never denied his admiration and alliance with the ideas of a
political system, based on the achievement of a just and solidary society, free of social classes
and that has an equal wealth distribution called socialism.
According to Elena Córdoba, it is known to many that “the fictional universe of García
Márquez ̶ the great part of his work ̶ recreates mythical worlds that seem to happen outside of
historical time and that return us to the time of the origins. Some of his characters are
supernatural beings or, at least, they are beings that exceed mere humanity¨, however, there are
many critics of Garcia Marquez who think that even the main character of his book “a hundred
years of solitude is recreated in the characteristics of the Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. ( Wiliams
Donald T. P33)
The stories of Garcia Marquez are closely related to the reality based on stories about
events that took place in the 20th century in Colombia and in a large part of Latin America,
where there were several civil wars, massacres dictatorships. In the works of Garcia Marquez,
the characters described as dictators “behave like the heroes of the Greek epics: moved by the
will to power, which seems more like a divine design, they are willing to do everything to lead
peoples and men through path they believe is right “(Córdoba Elena). This characteristic of the
dictators of the works of García Márquez is not an exclusive feature of his characters according
to Alain Vuillemin in his article “Dictateur” is the main characteristic of numerous dictatorships
of his time. XX According to the Colombian journalist Plinio Apuleyo Mendoza, “Fidel
resembles his most constant literary creatures-those of García Márquez-and the ghosts in which
he projects himself, with which he identifies his destiny as a modest son of a telegrapher who has
