Gerald Martin, a professor at the University of Pittsburgh and an expert on Latin American literature, spent 17 years of his life creating a biography of one of the greatest writers of our time, Gabriel García Márquez. In 2006, Marquez announced to the world press that Martin was his “official” biographer. As the professor himself writes: “We can probably consider that I am his only officially “not banned” biographer. This is a high honor.” Martin spent many hours talking with the writer himself, his family, translators and closest friends, including Fidel Castro. In total, he conducted about three hundred interviews. The most difficult thing, according to the biographer, was to understand the intricacies of the numerous myths with which the writer surrounded himself, because “almost every significant event in his life, Marquez described this way or that,” resorting to “mystification and blatant intrigue in order to let journalists or literary scholars in.” on the wrong trail." Marquez's biography is given against the background of the history of Latin America, which is of independent interest to the reader.