Is Gabriel Garcia Marquez a communist?

Question

He is friends with fidel castro but i don't if they share the same ideas.

Answer 1

I believe that he's pretty liberal and fairly Leftist, but just the fact that he's friends with Fidel Castro doesn't mean that he's a communist himself.

Castro gets a lot of really bad press in the States, but he actually facilitated and encouraged the Latin American boom in literature... which I would suspect is why Garcia Marquez is on such friendly terms with him.

Whatever his politics, Garcia Marquez is definitely a fantastic author. My favourite work of his is the short story "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings: A Tale for Children." One Hundred Years of Solitude is also really great.

Edit: In spite of what another person claims in their answer, Garcia Marquez is not dead.

Answer 2

Marquez is dead, so the question should be 'was' he a communist. He was sympathetic to many of the ideas of communism, but part of his friendship with Castro was based on the fact that the U.S. was out to kill Castro for not submiting to its will, and Marquez felt this was a travesty, and often criticized the U.S. He also criticized the U.S. for its drug policy of trying to destroy the drug trade in Latin America, since, he argued, the main consumers were U.S. citizens, so the U.S. should have spent its time controlling its own citizens, rather than those of other countries. However, Marquez was too broad a thinker to label him a 'communist.' It would be like saying Steven Spielberg is a capitalist.

Answer 3

No. Associations with people does not mean they share the same ideals. I have gothic firends, emo friends, jock friends, and nerdy friends (not to stereotype my own friends. I enjoy being associated with them). None of their views or philosophies on life have influenced me.

This association with Castro, however, does not mean that his literature should not be read. It is, in fact, quite the opposite. "100 Years of Solitude" is a classic novel, and "A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings" is the best short story I've read this year.

Answer 4

He has a great nonfiction book..kidnapping is in the title thats all I can remember. I do remember it was a great book about the kidnappings by the government in Bogota, and after reading you will know he certainly is not a communist.