Gabriel García Márquez, Colombian novelist, screenwriter, journalist, short-story writer, and the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1982, passed away on April 17th, 2014. He was 87 years old.

Márquez is widely regarded as one of the most influential writers of the 20th century. His works have greatly impacted the essence of Latin American literature, particularly with his distinguished use of magical realism, a genre in which magical and/or supernatural elements and events take place in a realistic, commonplace setting.

Some of Márquez’s most notable works include Chronicle of a Death Foretold (1981), Love in the Time of Cholera (1985), and the critically acclaimed One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967). Students in Mountain View High School’s AP Spanish Literature class read short stories such as Márquez’s One of these days (1962) and El ahogado mas hermoso del mundo (1972) in preparation for the May AP exam.

MVHS Spanish Literature teacher David Campbell said that, “What [Márquez] and authors like Darío, Borges, and Neruda did for all Latin American writers was to give them global recognition. They no longer were those ‘thousand cubs loosed from the Spanish lion (Dario, To Roosevelt). They were Latinos.”

Although he has passed on, Gabriel García Márquez continues to serve as an inspiration for students, authors, journalists, and community members alike both at MVHS and across the globe.

“He lives on,” Campbell said. “Everything he wrote is timeless and is ours to share. Truly great authors will be read long after their passing. We need not mourn the loss of his life, but celebrate his contribution to literature and culture.