In this exhaustive and enlightening biography-nearly two decades in the making-Gerald Martin dexterously traces the life and times of one of the twentieth century’s greatest literary titans, Nobel Prize-winner Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

Martin chronicles the particulars of an extraordinary life, from his upbringing in backwater Colombia and early journalism career, to the publication of One Hundred Years of Solitude at age forty, and the wealth and fame that followed. Based on interviews with more than three hundred of Garcia Marquez’s closest friends, family members, fellow authors, and detractors-as well as the many hours Martin spent with ‘Gabo’ himself-the result is a revelation of both the writer and the man. It is as gripping as any of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s powerful journalism, as enthralling as any of his acclaimed and beloved fiction.