Germanic Collections

Homepage

History: GDR Poster Art

GDR Poster Art and Chile

GDR Poster Art and Nicaragua

GDR Poster Art and other Latin American Countries

GDR Poster Art and other Developing Nations

Anti-USA Posters

Gabriel Garcia Marquez was born in 1928 in Aracataca, Colombia. His first novel, La Hojaresca , was published in 1955 and became a best-seller in 1960. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982. In his acceptance speech he commented on the relationship between Latin America and Europe and the United States:

"Why is the originality so readily granted us in literature so mistrustfully denied us in our different attempts at social change? Why think that the social justice sought by progressive Europeans for their own countries cannot also be a goal for Latin America, with different methods for dissimilar conditions? No: The immeasurable violence and pain of our history are the result of age old inequities and untold bitterness, and not a conspiracy plotted 3000 leagues from our homes. But many European leaders and thinkers have thought so, with the childishness of old-timers who have forgotten the fruitful excesses of their youth as if it were impossible to find another destiny than to live at the mercy of the two great masters of the world. This, my friends, in the very scale of our solitude."

In this quote he evokes the need for endogenous creativity in social justice movements. He has gained respect precisely for his own daring creativity, as displayed in his most famous novel One Hundred Years of Solitude. Believed to be his best, the novel is about a family living in Macondo, a town and a history of a people trying to negotiate a relationship with modernity. This modernity is most evident in the arrival of U.S. banana company officials to this town late in the book. Angel Rama offers a compelling description of what Garcia Marquez achieves in this novel. He explains how what Garcia Marquez tries to do is understand, deeply, the driving forces behind the destiny of his common characters. Time and time again he returns obsessively to the same characters. By concentrating on a reduced slice of reality, he hopes to reveal the truth. Like many writers of the twentieth century vanguard, says Rama, Garcia Marquez considers a fragment of reality capable of expressing the condition of humanity.

"To Gabriel Garcia Marquez: The Autumn of the Patriarch"

Ruth Tesmar (1983)

The title of this poster is the title of one of Marquez's novels.

As part of the "reality" in his novels, Garcia Marquez portrays violence and oppression as an ever-present background and foreground. Angel Rama identifies and describes this central tendency of his works. The violence, he says, manifests itself in only one way, which is through political manifestations. For this reason, violence goes hand-in-hand with political oppression, he explains. Violence can become so pervasive over the years that it seems to be a normal state. This analysis by Rama shows how his novels can be so attractive to people seeking solidarity with revolutionary movements.

Among his poltical writings, GGM documented the experience of the famous Chilean filmmaker Miguel Littin (La aventura de Miguel Littin, clandestino en Chile, 1986) who returned secretly to Chile after being exiled by the pinochet government . His purpse was to make a documentary film about the political situation in Chile. Littin returned to Chile disguised as a Uruguyan bussinessman, and with the help of three European film crews and several underground supporters and contacts, was able to complete the filming. Garcia Marquez recounts the adventures he took while making the secret film, even risking his life on several occasions, to document Chile of the 1980s.

The posters exhibited here are different artists' representations of his novels. The "boom" in Latin American literature of which Garcia Marquez, Carlos Fuentes, and Jorge Amado are leading figures, brought high sales of their books throughout the world. The exposure to Garcia Marquez's work, translated into many languages, has led many people to take interest in Latin America, through his literary and social visions.

"To Gabriel Garcia Marquez: One Hundred Years of Solitude"

Guenter Rechn (1987)

One Hundred Years of Solitude is the title of Marquez's most famous novel.