Fiction vs. Journalism

Gabriel García Márquez on the difference between fiction and journalism:

I don’t think there is any difference. The sources are the same, the material is the same, the resources and the language are the same. The Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe is a great novel and Hiroshima is a great work of journalism.

In journalism just one fact that is false prejudices the entire work. In contrast, in fiction one single fact that is true gives legitimacy to the entire work.

"Gabo," who died last week at the age of 87, was called "the most important writer in Spanish of the 20th century". He won the 1982 Nobel Prize in Literature. R.I.P.