Colombian writer García Márquez’s ashes taken to final resting place at Cartagena University
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The ashes of Colombian writer and Nobel laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez were taken to their final resting place at a memorial in the Claustro de la Merced, a hall at the University of Cartagena, where he briefly attended law school.
Cartagena, on the northern coast of Colombia, was where the young Garcia Marquez began his career as a journalist and will be “his eternal residence by the Caribbean,” the University of Cartagena said in a resolution.
In 1948, when the murder of Liberal leader Jorge Eliecer Gaitan unleashed a wave of violence known as “El Bogotazo,” Garcia Marquez interrupted his law studies in the capital and moved to Cartagena, enrolling in the local institution, university president Edgar Parra Chacon said.
Although Garcia Marquez dropped out of law school, his name remained linked to the city “for which he declared his deepest love,” Bolivar province Gov. Dumek Turbay said.
“Welcome back home, Gabo, Gabriel, Gabito, here with us forever,” Turbay said.
Garcia Marquez, winner of the 1982 Nobel Prize for Literature, died in Mexico City on April 17, 2014, at the age of 87.
Near the vault containing his ashes, a bust sculpted by British artist Katie Murray was unveiled.
The bust is on a floating platform in the central patio of the cloisters, surrounded by buildings from the Spanish colonial era.
