Mercedes Barcha
Wife of novelist Gabriel García Márquez From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mercedes Raquel Barcha Pardo (November 6, 1932 – August 15, 2020) was the wife of novelist Gabriel García Márquez (1927–2014).[1]
Mercedes Barcha | |
|---|---|
| |
| Born | November 6, 1932 Magangué, Colombia |
| Died | August 15, 2020 (aged 87) Mexico City, Mexico |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 2 |
Life
Barcha was born on November 6, 1932, in Magangué, Colombia. Barcha is best known for her financial and emotional support of her Nobel Prize-winning husband, the author Gabriel García Márquez.[2][3]She famously pawned her hair dryer to raise the postage needed to mail the draft of One Hundred Years of Solitude to the publisher[4].
She went by the nickname "La Gaba", a feminine version of her husband's nickname "Gabo"[4].
Marriage
She met García Márquez in 1941 when they were both still children, he was 14 and she was nine. In The Fragrance of Guava[5], it is recounted how García Márquez proposed to her at school dance when she was 13. They finally married in Barranquilla on March 21, 1958 when he was thirty-one and she was twenty-five.[6] [4]The couple had two sons, director Rodrigo García and Gonzalo García, who was born in Mexico and later became a graphic designer in Mexico City.[7] At the end of The Fragrance of Guava, when García Márquez is asked who was the most interesting person he had every met, he answered "my wife"[5].
Occupation
In 2014, after García Márquez's death, she served as the President Emerita of the Gabriel Garcia Marquez Iberoamerican Foundation for New Journalism in Cartagena, Colombia. In 2017, she founded the Fundación Gabo to promote García Márquez's legacy.[8][9]
Death
Barcha died in Mexico City on August 15, 2020.[6]
References
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