García Márquez was born on March 6, 1928, in Aracataca, Colombia, a small town near the Atlantic coast. He was raised by his grandparents, who stimulated his imagination with stories of supernatural beings and Colombian history. García Márquez was sent to school near Bogotá, and he enrolled at the National University of Colombia in 1947 to study law. Also that year, he published his first short story in a Colombian newspaper.

By the following year, García Márquez had transferred to school at Caratagena and was also working as a journalist. His discovery of William Faulkner's work at this time inspired him to become a writer. After he moved to Barranquilla in 1950, he continued working as ajournalist while also becoming involved with a group of young writers and intellectuals. García Márquez's reading of...