Master of magic realism, distinguished journalist and film critic, friend of world leaders ranging from Fidel Castro to Pres. Bill Clinton, Gabriel García Márquez improbably emerged from obscure beginnings to become an author more beloved of readers worldwide than any other living writer. His plots and protean characters plunge readers into the world of fable, yet their universal appeal, as this biography shows, is deeply rooted in the particularity of García Márquez's own idiosyncratic early life and his later wide travels, all undertaken with the restless curiosity and zest for life that he manages to evoke in his readers.