Born in 1927 in Aracataca, Colombia, Gabriel García Márquez began his writing career as a journalist whilst he was studying law at the University of Cartagena. During this time he became part of the informal ‘Barranquilla Group,’ which would influence his later career. His first published work was the novella ‘Leaf Storm’ and he subsequently published ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude,’ which led to García Márquez’s Nobel Prize as well as the Rómulo Gallegos Prize in 1972.