The maestro, Gabriel GarcÃa Márquez writes about the environmental degradation of Colombian waterways. Poetic and yet very factual. Marquez is a Colombian novelist, short-story writer, screenwriter and journalist. GarcÃa Márquez, familiarly known as "Gabo" in his native country, is considered one of the most significant authors of the 20th century. In 1982, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. He pursued a self-directed education that resulted in his leaving law school for a career in journalism. He started as a journalist, and has written many acclaimed non-fiction works and short stories, but is best-known for his novels, such as One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967) and Love in the Time of Cholera (1985). His works have achieved significant critical acclaim and widespread commercial success, most notably for popularizing a literary style labeled as magical realism, which uses magical elements and events in otherwise ordinary and realistic situations.