From 1950 until 1952 he wrote a "whimsical" column under the name of "Septimus" for the local paper El Heraldo in Barranquilla. García Márquez noted of his time at El Heraldo, "I'd write a piece and they'd pay me three pesos for it, and maybe an editorial for another three." During this time he became an active member of the informal group of writers and journalists known as the Barranquilla Group, an association that provided great motivation and inspiration for his literary career. He worked with inspirational figures such as Ramon Vinyes, whom García Márquez depicted as an Old Catalan who owns a bookstore in One Hundred Years of Solitude. At this time, García Márquez was also introduced to the works of writers such as Virginia Woolf and William Faulkner. Faulkner's narrative techniques, historical themes and use of rural locations influenced many Latin American authors. The environment of Barranquilla gave García Márquez a world-class literary education and a unique perspective on Caribbean culture. From 1954 to 1955, García Márquez spent time in Bogotá and regularly wrote for Bogotá's El Espectador. He was a regular film critic. In December 1957 García Márquez accepted a position in Caracas with the magazine Momento directed by his friend Plinio Apuleyo Mendoza. He arrived in the Venezuelan capital on 23 December 1957, and began working right away at Momento. García Márquez also witnessed the 1958 Venezuelan coup d'état, leading to the exile of the president Marcos Pérez Jiménez. Following this event, García Márquez wrote an article, "The participation of the clergy in the struggle", describing the Church of Venezuela's opposition against Jiménez's regime. In March 1958 he made a trip to Colombia, where he married Mercedes Barcha and together they returned to Caracas. In May 1958, disagreeing with the owner of Momento, he resigned and became shortly afterwards editor of the newspaper Venezuela Gráfica. Politics García Márquez was a "committed leftist" throughout his life, adhering to socialist beliefs. In 1991 he published Changing the History of Africa, an admiring study of Cuban activities in the Angolan Civil War and the larger South African Border War. He maintained a close but "nuanced" friendship with Fidel Castro, praising the achievements of the Cuban Revolution but criticizing aspects of governance and working to "soften [the] roughest edges" of the country. García Márquez's political and ideological views were shaped by his grandfather's stories. In an interview, García Márquez told