Gabriel Garcia Marquez is a Colombian born author who won the Nobel Prize for Literature for this first novel. It is described as the most influential literary work of our time, the greatest revelation in the Spanish language since Don Quixote of Cervantes (Chilean poet and Novel laureate Pablo Neruda).

It is a story that spans many generations and gives the reader a glimpse of history, culture, life with all the mythology, miracles  – stories first told by his grandmother. Marquez’s own story is a rags to riches saga, as this first book catapults him to international recognition.

From the book jacket: One Hundred Years of Solitude tells the story of the rise and fall, birth and death of the mythical town of Macondo through the history of the Buendia family. Inventive, amusing, magnetic, sad and alive with unforgettable men and women.

An except from the novel:

“Poor great-great-grandmother,” Amaranta Ursula said. “She died of old age.”

Ursula was startled.

“I am alive!” she said.

“You can see,” Amaranta Ursula said, suppressing her laughter, “that she’s not even breathing.”

“I’m talking!” Ursula shouted.

“She can’t even talk,” Aureliano said. “She died like a little cricket.”

Then Ursula gave in the the evidence. “My God,” she exclaimed in a low voice. “So this is what it’s like to be dead.”

Another shorter book by the same author that was very interesting, Chronicles of a Death Foretold. A gentleman is ambushed by two local men, brothers of a recently married, then disgraced girl (apparently by the poor murdered chap), who is brutally stabbed in broad daylight. The book reads like a murder mystery where everyone in town seemed to know about what was going to happen except the murder victim. Humourous with a distinct Caribbean flavour, this is a good read.