One Hundred Years of Solitude is a widely acclaimed novel which is considered to be the author’s masterpiece. Gabriel García Márquez won Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982. It was originally published in Spanish and has been translated into 37 languages. It has sold more than 20 million copies.
This novel presents metaphoric, critical interpretation of Colombian history. It presents different national myths throughout the story of Buendia family’s rise and fall, where many strange events occur; war, forbidden love, death, etc. The magical realist style, thematic substance, symbolism and metaphors are the main things that make this novel unique and interesting.
One Hundred Years of Solitude narrates the story of seven generations of the Buendía Family, whose patriarch, José Arcadio Buendía, to find a better life and a new home leaves Riohacha, Colombia with his wife (and first cousin) Úrsula and found the town of Macondo. And in this ordinary town of Macondo many extra-ordinary events take place. As the story developes generation after generation many children are born in this family, and each of them has their own story, but finally all of them are linked by the same curse of living in solitude. The novel follows the surreal events and magical occurrence that take place in very small towns to very ordinary people.
Only a few novels change people’s lives. And this is one of them.