The Figure of the Author in a Global Context: a case study of Gabriel García Márquez and his authorial brand

By Raphaele Freire Limas

Throughout the history of the publishing industry, the figure of the author has undergone major transformations. The modernization and development of consumer societies enabled the marketing and promotion of authors as true brands. The purpose of this book is to analyze the life and work of Gabriel García Márquez and how, through the promotion mechanisms used by the publishing industry, his name became a global brand. This book also explores the impacts that García Márquez's role, as a post-colonial author and exponent of magical realism in Latin America, generated for his recognition inside and outside the continent.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Editora Dialética
• Release date: Jun 2, 2021
• ISBN: 9786559567478

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

Several studies have investigated the figure and prestige of the author in different periods of the publishing history. According to Pierre Bourdieu (1996, p.167), who has the power to consecrate the author is not himself, but rather the publisher considered a talent-spotter and the one who contributes to making the value of the author he supports. However, the development of a globalized world, which has connected consumer societies, provoked changes within the publishing industry. These transformations have deeply affected authors’ representation and how they are perceived in a modern world.

Within this new, modern publishing environment grounded on mass media, researchers have identified that the figure of the author is now seen as a brand. As stated by Brouillette (2007, p.65), The author’s name and attached personae have become key focal points for the marketing of literary texts. Her theory also approaches the role of postcolonial authors in representing their cultures and how their international success depends on the association with their region.

The figure and prestige of Gabriel García Márquez shall be analyzed in this book as an author of the so-called Boom, a movement that put Latin American literature and writers on the international spotlight during the 1960s and 1970s. Emphasis is placed on the life of Gabriel García Márquez and how political and social influences were crucial for his prestige and consecration as one of the best authors of the Spanish-speaking world. The author’s transformation into a brand will also be explored, alongside the mechanisms utilized to confer him the status of an international author.

Also central to this book is the understanding of the Latin American Boom movement, the concept of magical realism and how it is perceived as a postcolonial literary mode, and the continent’s literary field of that period. This book will consider Latin American literature as a postcolonial subject of study. It is important to place the research discoveries into a social and political background, especially with regard to Latin America, which suffered from colonization for hundreds of years, affecting its literary production.

POSTCOLONIAL LITERATURE

Postcolonialism was initially coined by political scientists and economists to refer to the period after colonialism, but from the late 1970s it has been used as a broader term that can also be applied to culturalist analysis. Therefore, within the literary field, postcolonialism has been a term utilized to analyze western postcolonial literature from different perspectives.

Postcolonial literature embraces literatures from formerly western colonized countries and diasporas. These literatures thus emerged in the colonized world as a form of opposition and resistance against western control and oppression.

According to Edward Said, (1994, p.12),

[…] stories are at the heart of what explorers and novelists say about strange regions of the world; they also become the method colonized people use to assert their own identity and the existence of their own history.

Colonized subjects thus fought for the right to tell their own stories in search of equality and human community. For the very first time these peoples have had the chance to speak and write about themselves instead of having their stories fabricated and imposed by the imperial center. Postcolonial literature therefore places culture as a source of identity, acquiring special and distinctive regional characteristics (Ashcroft et. al., 1989, p.2).

The marginalization of the postcolonial world, once utilized as an alienating process to push colonized subjects to the margin, became a source of creative energy of which all experience is viewed as pluralistic and multifarious.

Colonized peoples in territories such as Algeria, South Africa, India and Indonesia, had a completely opposed experience of colonialism when compared to the Americas, which were subjected to complex political and cultural processes. However, the Americas have rarely been considered a subject of postcolonial studies. As stated by Fiddian (2000, p.4),

"One powerful justification for the inclusion of America is the rich tradition of postcolonial theory associated with the Caribbean, as exemplified by Frantz Fanon, C.L.R. James, Édouard Glissant […]."

Fiddian also considers the importance of opening a specific space in the postcolonial map to include Latin America. In fact, the Spanish and Portuguese Empires dominated Latin America for hundreds of years affecting how Latin Americans produce their literature.

According to Ashcroft (1998, p.7-8),

[...] we may discover that Latin America has given ample evidence of its postcoloniality long before the emergence of ‘colonial and postcolonial discourse’ from the metropolitan academy.

To perceive the Latin American literary field as a subject of postcolonial study, it is important to understand the role and prestige of some authors such as García Márquez, whose career illustrates a progression from an author considered a romantic myth to an international celebrity. García Márquez was also an exponent of magical realism. Magical realist texts oppose mainstream culture, emerging as a postcolonial literary practice. Magical realism represents Latin America’s identity and regionalism, unifying its literary field. This book will clarify the conflicting analysis upon magical realism, explaining how García Márquez’s literature is more associated with a Latin American identity and how he can be considered a postcolonial author.

Although García Márquez has been the subject of countless research, focusing on his life as an author and journalist, his persona and work, few attempts have been made to identify his authorial brand and contributions as a postcolonial author. This book will analyze and explain the processes to which the name of García Márquez passed through in order to become a brand, including the distribution of his copyright and legacy.

THE CHARACTER OF THE BOOM AND THE EMERGENCE OF GABRIEL GARCÍA MÁRQUEZ

Some attempts have been made to identify the character of the Boom and how the movement was crucial to export Latin American literature and its authors. For José Donoso (1977), Chilean writer, journalist and professor, during the 1960s (the beginning of the Boom) the quality of the novels produced was unquestionable, and their international attention was acquired