Colombian literary authors and their works have contributed to society throughout the history of the world. One of the most famous of all is Gabriel Garcia Marquez. One Hundred Years of Solitude was written in the latter part of the last century and to this day symbolizes Latin culture. Gabriel Marquez actually won a Nobel Prize in 1982 for his many writings and unfortunately just recently died (2014).
This author wrote the story in past tense to show how he grew up. He wonderfully wrote about the people, the town, and the struggles and triumphs. To this day, this book is known as a masterpiece in literature and it also gave him much notoriety.
Marquez is credited as one of the authors to introduce Magical Realism into writing because he used magic and fantasy into his writing. As a result, many authors began incorporating this type of writing and was thus introduced to the European markets. Many Latin authors began to look up to him, which in turn created many authors to emulate this type of writing. This helped their careers to flourish.
Two other Colombian authors of notable mention are Alvaro Mutis Jaramillo and José Eustasio Rivera Salas.
Alvaro was a novelist, poet, and essayist. He wrote the famous The Adventures and Misadventures of Maqroll. In 2001 he won the Migeul de Cervantes Prize for literature. In 2002, Alvaro won the Neustadt international Prize for literature. Alvaro wrote mainly nonfiction and kept to prose and poetry. He also worked twenty years for Columbia pictures in their Latin America TV division. He did the narration for The Untouchables in native Spanish.
Salas was a well known lawyer, but is actually known as the author of the famous epic The Vortex. This is historic because he studied rubber and rubber workers in the Amazon jungle and the problems they were having to extract it and brought this issue to light.
In modern times, it is easier to become a published author than it was years back due to technology, our global society, and to many organizations that have come together. One of these organizations is The Colombia Writers Alliance. This is a great gathering of Latin American authors; whereby, there is exposure to poetry, essays, and many works of fiction and nonfiction literature. Some events include book readings, contests, and much more.
If an author only likes to write poetry, Colombia Poetry International is the place to join. Everything that is related to poetry can be learned from this great organization. It is a place where a poet can learn the techniques and craft of the business, as well as learn how to become published. In addition, many awards are also won through this community of poets. These awards and accolades can cross over to Europe and the US for much recognition and are considered a great accomplishment.
Everyone of these Colombian authors bring forth a rich history of their culture and history that they share with the world. These are just a few of the many talented individuals that come from Colombia and there are so many more too numerous to mention.
