As part of the Latino Heritage Month’s celebration, there will be an introduction and film screening of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s novel turned film, “Love in Times of Cholera,” at 7 p.m. Thursday in Seventh Street Underground.

Jose Deustua, a history professor, said Marquez is a famous Columbian writer who contributed to Latin literature “tremendously.” He said Marquez worked as a journalist for a few years while writing short stories.

Deustua said he was supportive of the Cuban Revolution during the ‘60s, which put his life in danger while living in Columbia.

Deustua said Marquez then moved to Mexico where he lived most of his life because he was all for social change.

He said Marquez’s idea of magic realism comes from the notion of writers changing the perceptions of reality through their text, which he was known for. Stretching the imagination is what magic realism is popularized to do. “It’s realism with a lot of elements of magic,” Deustua said.

“One Hundred Years of Solitude” is one of the novels Marquez is known for in which there are characters who die, but re-appear later as ghosts.

Deustua said the notion of the ghosts actually existing and talking is a question raised in the novel. He said this is just one of many examples of Marquez’s magic realism.

“That put him on the literary map,” Deustua said.

Deustua said his novels have influenced many people from all parts of life as they have been translated into at least 70 different languages.

Roberto Hodge can be reached at 581-2812 or [email protected].