Gabriel Garcia Marquez and China

Gabriel Garcia Marquez.[Photo/Xinhua]

Gabriel Garcia Marquez was probably the most-read contemporary foreign writer in China for more than three decades.

His work swept the Chinese literary scene since being first introduced in the early 1980s. He armed generations of Chinese writers with fresh skills, and triggered a new literary trend called “root searching school”. He had the magic touch of remaining a top icon, however readers’ taste changed.

Known as “Gabo”, he died on Thursday in Mexico City at age of 87.

Chinese Nobel laureate in literature Mo Yan, once known as “Chinese Garcia Marquez”, is among faithful fans and said he had tried to escape the great Spanish-language writer’s influence for 20 years.

“Since the 1960s, no other books have such extensive and long standing influence in the world as One Hundred Years of Solitude,” Mo told Tencent Culture, upon learning the news of his death.

“He was a talented writer that created a unique type of novel which made him immortal,” Mo said.

Mo also talked about Garcia Marquez’s influence on his own writing when giving his Nobel Lecture on Dec 7, 2012.

“I … was encouraged by the bold, unrestrained way they (Garcia Marquez and William Faulkner) created new territory in writing, and learned from them that a writer must have a place that belongs to him alone,” Mo said.

“I followed in the footsteps of these two masters before realizing that I had to escape their influence,” he added.

When Mo began reading the writer in the early 1980s, a Garcia Marquez book (especially One Hundred Years of Solitude) was the most stunning accessory a young Chinese could get. Most readers then who have become the country’s established writers, were astounded by the way “writers can tell the stories like this”, said Yang Ling, translator of Garcia Marquez’s Love in the Time of Cholera with Capital Normal University.