One Hundred Years of Solitude

Though little more than a settlement surrounded by mountains Macondo has its wars and disasters even its wonders and miracles. A microcosm of Columbian life its secrets lie hidden encoded in a book and only Aureliano Buendia can fathom its mysteries and reveal its shrouded destiny. <p>Equally tragic, joyful and comical, Gabriel García Márquez's masterpiece of magical realism, <i>One Hundred Years of Solitude </i>is a seamless blend of fantasy and reality, translated from the Spanish by Gregory Rabassa in Penguin Modern Classics.<br><br>Gabriel García Márquez's great masterpiece is the story of seven generations of the Buendía family and of Macondo, the town they have built. Though little more than a settlement surrounded by mountains, Macondo has its wars and disasters, even its wonders and miracles. A microcosm of Columbian life, its secrets lie hidden, encoded in a book and only Aureliano Buendía can fathom its mysteries and reveal its shrouded destiny. Blending political reality with magic realism, fantasy with comic invention, <i>One Hundred Years of Solitude</i> is one of the most daringly original works of the twentieth century.<br><br>Gabriel García Márquez (b. 1928) was born in Aracataca, Colombia. He is the author of several novels, including <i>Leaf Storm</i> (1955), <i>One Hundred Years of Solitude</i> (1967), <i>The Autumn of the Patriarch</i> (1975), <i>Chronicle of a Death Foretold</i> (1981) and <i>The General in His Labyrinth</i> (1989). He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982.<br><br>If you enjoyed <i>One Hundred Years of Solitude</i>, you might like <i>Love in the Time of Cholera</i>, also available in Penguin Modern Classics.<br><br>'With a single bound Gabriel García Márquez leaps on the stage with Günter Grass and Vladimir Nabokov ... dazzling'<br><i>The New York Times</i></p>