Product Description
The Real Academia Española celebrates the 40th Anniversary of Garcia Marquez s masterpiece in this beautiful commemorative edition. Prologues by Carlos Fuentes, Alvaro Mutis, Mario Vargas Llosa and other intellectuals.One Hundred Years of Solitude is the first piece of literature since the Book of Genesis that should be required reading for the entire human race.-New York Times Book Review ... Read more

Customer Reviews (20)

Cien anos de Soledad Edicion conmemorativa
Este Libro de Gabriel Garcia Marques Cien anos de soledad me encanto! Tenia que leerlo para una clase en la secundaria y me alegro de ello! Tanto es asi que termine comprandolo! La version que tengo es la version conmemorativa y viene con mucha informacion adicional acerca del autor y de la historia. Vino en perfecta condicion y el diseno es muy bonito! Cualquiera que desee comprarlo creame que no se arrepentira!

Excelent
I love to read. I bought this book because of the author, and that called my attention the title "Cien anos de Soledad", I wanted to know what this title means and how Gabriel Garcia Marquez could write without living that long, it was amazing the way he described all the situations that make me feel that I was part of the novel.I ussually read at night and while reading this book I just wanted to go to the end and read to 4 or 5 am. I will recommend this book very hardly

Nadie es extranjero en Macondo
Al terminar el libro solo queda darle gracias a Garcia Marquez por el universo marivilloso que a creado para la posteridad. Un libro de esos sorprendentes q vale la pena re-leer y q tiene la cualidad de sumergir al lector tan facilmente q es mejor leerlo despues de haber hecho las demas tareas del dia para no olvidar de hacerlas!
Es un regalo grandiosioso.

Cien Anos de Soledad
Excellent novel; good in English translation, better in this (Spanish) original. Special "Royal Institute of Spanish Literature" edition contains critical works on the novel. Good buy, good book, great story.

Outstanding
The time period from the e-mail notification (when they notify me the item was shipped to me) to when I actually got the item was kind of long, but besides that, very good service. ... Read more

Product Description
En una bella edicion y dentro de su coleccion Centzontle, el FCE recupera los discursos de Gabriel Garcia Marquez y Carlos Fuentes pronunciados en torno a una conmemoracion unica: los 80 anos del Premio Nobel colombiano y los 40 anos de la novela Cien anos de soledad. Una celebracion de la cual el lector puede ser testigo privilegiado a traves de este libro. Garcia Marquez recuerda en estas paginas que ni en el mas delirante de sus suenos imagino que su novela llegaria a ser leida por casi 50 millones de lectores, un numero tal de personas que si vivieran en un solo pedazo de tierra seria uno de los 20 paises mas poblados del mundo. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (12)

Marquez only does Superb!

A set of short semi linked stories set in and around the wonderful Latin American Kingdom Maquez created in '100 Years of Solitude' including the novella of the Colonel, who fought in the revolution and has been betrayed;relying on a Cock to win him some money to keep starvation at bay.
This is a superb collection, each tale in some way telling of the futile revolutions that never end up benefiting the people; the stiffling bureaucracy, the corruption, nepotism and autocracy of Latin American politics and life in a small town.
Stand out stories ; 'There are no Thieves in this Town' where a pointless theft of the billiard balls from the pool hall affects the whole life of the town and reaps an innocent victim;the lyrical fable 'One Day After Saturday' and 'Montiels Widow'; a Town changes when the local tyrant dies...
But the whole book is superb. Garcia Marquez just doesn't do 'average' and reading him is a pleasure.

highly recommend
The part that made me the most happy was how "One-Hundred years of Solitude" got referenced.This is a collection of short stories that is an easy read.The writing style is such that you can "see" what the author is saying.This may also be one of the most strange banterings between man and wife I have seen.

No one writes to the colonel
It seemed to take a while to ship, but not excessively so.Also, a few of the pages were bent - not sure if this was pre-existing or if it happened during shipping.Otherwise, minimal marks and a good value for the price.

Sad and Depressing but such a well written story
Every time when I'm feeling lonely, I always say "No one writes to the Colonel". That's the feeling that you take away from this book, I def would not recommend this book if your standing on the edge of the rooftop cause you probably will jump (then again i don't recommend reading on edges of rooftops either). The book tells a story of a aging, dying, old man, who fought alongside General Buendia in his heyday, who is waiting for pension from the war day after day. He lost his son, his wife is dying everyday from asthma, he sold all his belongings to pay for food including his son prize fighting cock, all he have left is the hope that one day all his troubles will end when finally receive his pension.

One of the central theme in this book is "money isn't everything unless you don't have any".

Colonel
An excellent translation of Garcia Marques's short stories.
The work is exact word by word. Wish they publish the original in Spanish as well. As a student of Spanish literary, this work is a great help. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (33)

It Stands Unique by Itself!!!
Although I can consider myself a GGM fiction fan, I encountered "Vivir Para Contarla" utterly more attention-grabbing than any of his other works.Perhaps It was just the fact that he related his real life, from the time before his birth until he was something like twenty eight years old, in such a magical way that I could just not put the book down for more than a few moments. I could come across in this volume with so much of the background that made the genius in Gabo, that I could not accept it as factual. Actually I was so beguiled by the story, by the idiosyncrasy of his large and astonishing family, by the actual brilliance and intelligence of the child, the adolescent and the young man in Gabo, that I unreservedly supposed I was immersed in one more of this author's accomplishments. He relates his non precedent childhood and early adolescent years as a conspicuous reader and writer of poems and stories- which he memorized and recited by hearth-, as a distinguished picture drawer, as a notable singer, as an extremely timid person, in sum: as another character out of its novellas and short stories.He, at the same time, enriches our reading with his detailed and exhaustive career as an anonymous young journalist in Colombia, who spends an awesome amount of his free time discussing literature with his fellow workers and friends, at a time period when literature was the coolest matter to be involved in.However, the social and political backgrounds of his whereabouts are so precise and stuck to Colombian and the World's historic and social events, that henceforth what he conveys us in this first volume of his autobiography must have a great deal of reality in it.
In spite of the fact that a myriad of the characters, locations and events that we find as basis for his novellas and short stories come out of his real life, I do not believe it imperative to be acquainted to any of his other masterpieces in order to devour and absolutely enjoy this volume. It stands unique by itself!
I am anxiously waiting for the subsequent volumes of this trilogy, however due to the actual author's sickness; I don't believe we will be receiving the complete trilogy at all.

Muy mala encuadernación por Knopf
El libro es buenísimo, particularmente el estilo de Gabo es genial y lo que lo hace aun mas meritorio es que se trata de un relato autobiográfico. Lamentablemente tengo que advertirles de un error de encuadernación en la edición de pasta dura (hardcover) las hojas vienen mal cortadas, he ya ordenado dos libros y los dos vienen con el mismo defecto. La editorial KNOPF ha hecho un muy mal trabajo. Mi recomendación... busquen otras editoriales.

Vivir para Contarla
El autor es un relator latinoamericano costumbrista. El realismo magico es lo comun y corriente en esos pagos. De ilusion tambien se vive. Quiza algun dia se inspire en escribir una novela sobre el realismo magico de la tragedia cubana, dada su intima afinidad con el Doctor Fidel Castro Ruz.

Una magnífica crónica de los años que modelaron la imaginación de Garcia Marquez
"Living to Tell the Tale," ("Vivir Para Contarla"), is the first book in a planned trilogy that will make up the memoirs of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the renown Colombian writer who initially won public acclaim in the mid-1960s for his novel "One Hundred Years of Solitude." At that time, Garcia Marquez, a journalist and writer, had never sold more than 700 copies of a book. While driving his family through Mexico, he had a veritable brainstorm. He remembered his grandmother's storytelling technique - to recall fantastic, improbable events as if they had actually happened - literally. That was the key to recounting the life of the imaginary village of Macondo and her inhabitants. He turned the car around and drove back home to begin "One Hundred Years of Solitude" anew. To my mind it is one of the 20th century's best works of fiction, and was highlighted in the citation awarding Garcia Marquez the 1982 Nobel Prize in Literature.

"Living to Tell The Tale" relates the early years of the author's life, although some of the book's most important incidents predate Garcia Marquez's birth. The impact of these experiences, the people and their stories, were to have a powerful effect on him, as a man and as a writer. This is the tale of his parents' courtship, marriage and the birth of their children, Garcia Marquez, (Gabito), the oldest, and his ten siblings. It tells of his early years which were spent in Aracataca, in the home of his maternal grandparents. His grandfather, Colonel Nicolás Ricardo Márquez Mejía, was a Liberal veteran of the War of a Thousand Days. He was supposedly a storyteller of great repute. The Colonel told his young grandson that there was no greater burden than to have killed a man. Later García Márquez would put these words into the mouths of his characters. His grandmother, Tranquilina Iguarán Cotes, had a major influence on Gabriel's life also. Another great source of stories, her mind was filled with superstitions and folklore, and she gossiped away with her numerous sisters within hearing range of young "Gabito." No matter how fantastic her statements, she always delivered them as if they were the absolute, verifiable truth. This was the style which was to effect Garcia Marquez's fiction, sometimes called "magical realism." These women filled the house with stories of ghosts, premonitions and omens - all of which were studiously ignored by her husband. He had little interest in "women's beliefs."

Aracataca was a small village, a banana town on the Caribbean coast, where poverty was the norm and violence was an everyday occurrence. On December 6, 1928, in the Cienaga train station, near Aracataca, 3,000 striking banana workers were shot and killed by troops from Antioquia. Although still a baby, this event, recounted to him, was to have a profound effect on the author. The incident was officially forgotten and omitted from Colombian history textbooks.

In 1940, when he was twelve, Gabo was awarded a scholarship to a secondary school for gifted students, run by Jesuits. The school, the Liceo Nacional, was in Zipaquirá, a city 30 miles to the north of Bogotá. It was during his school years, 1940s and 50s, that he was first drawn to poetry - a national obsession in Colombia. Verse was revered as an art form, and also as an effective means of social and political commentary. He and his friends, fellow students, would read aloud and discuss poetry late into the night. The youths admired a group of poets called the piedra y cielo ("stone and sky") and they were strongly influenced by Juan Ramon Jimenez and Pablo Neruda. Too poor to buy his own books, Gabo would devour novels borrowed from friends.

While still a boy, he decided he wanted to be a writer. The people who surrounded him in his childhood later became instrumental when developing the characters and the storylines for his novels. "Love In The Time of Cholera" was inspired by the romance between his mother and father. And his grandfather, who had twelve children, (some say 16), by two different women, became Colonel Aureliano Buendia in "One Hundred Years of Solitude."

One of the most powerful episodes of the book tells of the period called "La Violencia." In 1948 the Liberal presidential candidate, Jorge Eliecer Gaitan, was assassinated. The murder led to rioting, and left approximately 2500 dead on the streets of Bogota, during "el Bogotázo." Political violence and repression followed. One of the buildings that burned was the pension where Garcia Marquez lived, and his manuscripts were destroyed along with his living quarters. The National University was closed and he was forced to go to the university in Cartagena. Garcia Marquez began his career as a journalist, writing stories and commentary for a Liberal newspaper in Cartegana. Later he moved to the coastal city of Barranquilla where he began to associate with a group of young writers who admired modernists like Joyce, Woolf and Hemingway, and introduced Marquez to Faulkner. In 1954 he returned to Bogota, as a reporter for El Espectador.

Garcia Marquez begins his book, however, not with his real birth in 1928, but with his "birth as a writer," at age 22. He and his mother took a trip from Baranquilla, where he was working as a reporter, to his childhood home in Aracataca, now virtually a ghost town. They were going to sell the ancestral house. Vivid memories were stirred up here, memories which electrified his imagination. This trip was to change the course of his writing life. "With the first step I took onto the burning sands of the town, Aracataca instantly became Macondo, an earthly paradise of desolation and nostalgia." His one great subject became his family, "which was never the protagonist of anything, but only a witness to and victim of everything." His is not a chronological autobiography. Garcia Marquez cuts back and forth through time to show how memory colors experience. As he says in the book's epigraph, "Life is not what one lived, but what one remembers and how one remembers it in order to recount it."

Humor, dry wit, a sense of the absurd, is a trademark throughout the novels of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and this autobiography is full of his deadpan humor. His anecdotes of his many mistresses and cafe society are wonderful. "Living To Tell The Tale" is not a conventional literary memoir. It is a magical combination of memoir and national history written in the author's remarkable voice. It is his personal mythology, from the repertoire which birthed Macondo. The narrative is intimate and sincere, filled with bewitching details and descriptions. In spite of poverty, and the political turmoil so prevalent in Colombia during his lifetime, Gabo acknowledges his early years were filled with joy, a sense of well-being and encouragement from many people. Garcia Marquez leaves us, at the end of this volume, with a glimpse of his future love, his wife, ""wearing a green dress with golden lace in that year's style, her hair cut like swallows' wings, and with the intense stillness of someone waiting for a person who will not arrive."

Bravo Gabriel Garcia Marquez!!
JANA

I prefer his fiction
This book is the first in a series.Frankly, I hope that in his next memoir there iwll be more about his literary writing b/c this doesn't cover his marvelous literary career at all.

The first sections of the book which deal with his childhood and schooling are comic and moving, with great turns of phrase and details about his grandfather and large family.What I found less interesting were the accounts of his journalism career.Apart from a very compelling section about a political asassination and its aftermath, I was a little bored. Even worse, I did not feel that some of his bohemian friends were distinguished from each other.

I am going to go back and reread The General in His Labyrinth and the novels that I so adore.I just prefer them. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Great Service Provided!!
This was a great, fast and simple transaction!! Very Impressed!! Thank you, will do business again!! ... Read more

Product Description
El general Simón Bolívar, “El Libertador” de los países de América del Sur, da, por última vez, un nostálgico viaje por el río Magdalena en el que vuelve a visitar ciudades en sus orillas donde revive sus triumfos, sus pasiones y las traiciones de toda una vida. Poseedor de un gran encanto personal, prodigiosamente afortunado en amores, en la guerra y en la política, todavía baila con tanto entusiasmo y habilidad que los que lo ven no pueden creer lo enfermo que está. Apasionado por los recuerdos del poder que tuvo, y de su sueño de unidad continental que nunca logró realizar, Bolívar es un ejemplo conmovedor de cuánto puede ganarse —y perderse— en una vida. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (10)

A Great Warrior's Last Battle
A fictionalized account of Simon Bolivar, based on his last voyage, illness and death. For one like myself who didn't know much about the <> of South America, it was enlightening, powerful and sad. The great man is portrayed in decline, but with flashes of his previousbrilliance and intuitive vision. The portrait is all too human--a man of tremendous ego, vanity, libido, and charisma. A man who turned away from his upbringing to become a revolutionary. A man who lost his wife after eight months of marriage and never again formed a committed relationship with a woman. A man idolized, loved, and hated by his countrymen. A man deeply disappointed that his vision of a unified South American nation never materialized.

Author Gabriel Garcia Marquez is of course a genius and writes this book with his usual flair. It is sometimes difficult to separate fact from fiction in the narrative, but then again, it doesn't matter. He conveys the spirit of a man and his times. It was hard to put the book down and I'm sure I'll come back to it again. I recommend this one highly.

Bolivar's stream of conciousness?
To appreciate this book at its true worth one does need to do some homework.Understanding a little bit of the political complexities that surrounded the end of the independence wars and the start of the nation building process would help to gain a perspective to allow a better appreciation of a narration that pretends to present us a sick, depressed Bolivar. Yet, even if you refuse to do that home work, it will be a very good read.We are not in 100 Years of Solitude anymore here.This book has an odd sense of reality since it focuses more to the inner workings of Bolivar's mind, and his way of facing the end.Perhaps what makes the book really interesting it to see the image that Bolivar has over the cultural elites of Northern South Ameica, his legacy that for better or for worse inspires great writer like Garcia Marquez, or opportunistic politicians like we can see today in Venezuela.Reading how Garcia Marquez imagines the end of the Bolivarian epic is more fascinating than the story itself.

garcia marquez parece cansado
este libro no me gusto en lo mas minimo, a diferencia de sus otros libros que he disfrutado, este libro pide un esfuerzo sobre humano para dejarse leer, y ademas es bastante dificil diferenciar la ficcion de los datoshistoricos a menos que uno sea un experto en historia sur americana.Algunosdatos referentes a las caracteristicas fisicas de Simon Bolivar, son datosmuy curiosos pero que requeririan confirmacion.A algunas personas lesagradara el libro, sobre todo creo que a los historiadores, pero para elpublico en general resulta muy aburrido

LUIS MENDEZluismendez@codetel.net.do

Una experiencia intrincada pero gratificante
El verbo y estilo de Garcia Marquez pruduce una obra colosal donde se refleja la etapa mas sombria de la vida del libertador descrita con maticesmuy liberales de imaginacion pero con fuertes fundamentos historicos. Parauna lectura mas liviana e igualmente placentera les recomiendo "ElCoronel no tiene quien le escriba"

!Una desmitificacion!
Si los relatos, dibujados con palabras que dan al lector un imagen tan claro del protagonista, dados a nosotros en el estilo caracteristico de Marquez sean verdaderos o no, esta obra es una de las mejores que he leido. El autor pinta un retrato del famoso general que provee una vista profundade lo que el sentia en sus ultimos dias; el general era humano. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

If you liked Macondo in 100 years of solitude you will love this collection
In Funerales de la Mama Grande, a series of seemingly independent short stories tell us about a town, which reflects the same aura and magic realism that we see in "100 Years of Solitude".Despite the separate stories, the lives of all their characters are interconnected under the same burning sun and unbearable heat of this small foresaken town.Mama Grande is the character that will ultimately represent the whole andbring this insignificant town to the heart of the country and of the world. A must for all lovers of Garcia Marquez's work.

A classic of Latin American literature
If you like Gabriel Garcia Marquez... you will love this collection of stories. They are a must read for lovers of magical realism. These stories are the type you can smell and taste. This is the original stuff beforeeveryone started doing it (Isabel Allende for example) and nobody has doneit better or will do it better. Nobel Price winner GGM is the mostimportant writer alive and arguably the most important writer of the 20thcentury...

Gabo is amazing!
Que la mama grande sea la dueña de los colores de la bandera habla de la elocuencia de Garcia Marquez. No se pierdan esta genial historia. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (33)

Power is a double-edged sword
Within the violent framework of a Colombian State with a government without credibility, an ineffective judicial system and the abysmal level of its security forces, G.G. Márquez brushed a poignant picture of the war on drug trafficking with in depth portraits of the kidnapped, the traffickers, their foot folk, the civil authorities and the judges involved.

Drug trading means easy money, which is more harmful than the narcotics themselves. It provokes a social breakdown. It becomes a waste of time learning to read and to write. One can live a better life as a criminal than as a law-abiding citizen. The law becomes one's greatest obstacle to happiness.
The drug traffickers were unable to distinguish between good and evil.
Their foot folk (the guards) knew that they were going to die young and cared only about living for the moment.
Many of the judges and the magistrates had the choice between being bribed or being killed. Their salaries were barely enough to live on, but not to pay for the education of their children.
The government (and its president) changed tactics in the drug war. Drug traffickers could be extradited to the US, where they faced harsh sentences (P. Escobar: `We prefer a grave in Colombia to a cell in the US.') Those who surrendered and confessed to their crimes could receive the right not to be extradited.
The kidnapped lived a disturbing nightmare swinging between hope (to be released) and fear (to be killed).

With the kidnappings the Extradites (mainly P. Escobar) tried to force the government to grant them an irrevocable right not to be extradited and to have the right to choose their prison.
But power is a double-edged sword; one wields it and one is wounded by it.

With its news dispatches balancing between alarmingly bad and slightly hopeful messages G. G. Márquez wrote a remarkably realist psycho-thriller on a shaken society.
A must read for all lovers of world literature.

Dark, Thrilling, Emotional And Well-Documented.
"News Of A Kidnapping" is a brilliant work of non-fiction by Colombia's Gabriel Garcia Marquez, known around the world for his novels including "One Hundred Years Of Solitude" and "Love In The Time Of Cholera." Here Marquez explores the sad recent history of his native land, where the drug trade in the 1980s and 1990s turned Colombia into a raging war zone similar to today's Mexico. Marquez uses the kidnapping of ten high-class Colombians by drug lord Pablo Escobar as his basic storyline, Escobar and his fellow drug lords want to use the hostages as a way to force the Colombian government to stop plans to extradite them to the United States. Marquez uses this setting to transport us into modern Colombian culture, society and history.

In breathtaking pace Marquez chronicles the kidnappings, the characters involved and how they survived the agony and terror of their ordeal. "News Of A Kidnapping" surpasses any fictional crime thriller with it's incredible attention to detail, the way Marquez makes history come to life and finds the drama in reality. The book is a potent mix of perfect journalism and engaging storytelling, never boring the reader yet presenting a vast gallery of facts, events, people and dates. The world Marquez takes us into reads like something out of the Brazilian film "City Of God," cartels rule the streets, a culture of death and corruption takes place while the rich form death squads and Marxist guerrillas roam the countryside. Anyone who wants to understand modern Colombia, or what is taking shape in Mexico, should read this book.

Like the best works by Eduardo Galeano and Salman Rushdie, Marquez succeeds here in finding the humanity of the real life story. It doesn't read like some academic chronicle. Like his other brilliant nonfiction book, "Clandestine In Chile," Marquez takes a real-life event and makes you realize why the term "the truth is stranger than fiction" exists. There are moments where the hostages recall hallucinatory experiences during their ordeal that read like magical realism itself, there are scenes of such violence, suspense and surprise that they make John Grisham look like Danielle Steele. Each hostage, each politician, each villain, is perfectly constructed, explored and analyzed. The only person who eludes us is Pablo Escobar, Marquez brilliantly casts him as a kind of dark shadow hovering over Colombia, the dark hand we can't see but know is back there planning the terror.

"News Of A Kidnapping" is great literature and great history, it works for a good read on the plane or train, yet it is also a valuable work of scholarship for students of modern Latin American history. One is tempted to prefer Marquez as a nonfiction writer to his iconic title of novelist. This is also the best book on the drug war that engulfed Colombian society for so long, Marquez doesn't just chronicle the crime, he analyzes his people's psychological state, the toll the culture and society took due to the violence. "News Of A Kidnapping" is a beautifully written work that has not aged and should be required reading for anyone interested in the master's body of material.

War, through the eyes of its victims
Gabriel García Márquez wrote News of a Kidnapping to tell the story of the ordeal of ten Colombian journalists who were abducted and held by Pablo Escobar's drug organization in 1993 and 1994. A native Colombian and Nobel Prize winner for fiction, García Márquez weaves together the story of Maruja Pachón and the other captives, with the story of how Escobar and his Medellin cartel held their country in his power for years while he amassed a fortune, wreaked terror on ordinary people, and bargained for the right to be imprisoned in luxury in the place of his choosing.

Escobar captured prominent journalists Escobar to bring the attention of the country to his demands, and ultimately to have the assistance of the victims' families in making his extradition to the United States illegal. García Márquez tells the stories in a linear fashion - clarifying the political, legislative and legal aspects of the story. At the same time, we see the arbitrary ordeal of the ten captives. Two of the abductees were eventually killed - one outright by the kidnappers and the other in confusion at a critical moment of release and rescue. The others are released over a period of months, after being moved from house to house, with changing groups of guards, and always the uncertainty of the outcome.

While García Márquez clearly has little patience for Escobar and his group, he manages to give the stories a context that makes some sense of them, while acknowledging the inherent insanity of what happens through the long months of captivity, bargaining and exchange. He makes no overt judgments about how the captives, their families, and their guards acted. We are left to understand them through the memories of the months spent together in small spaces, under tension.

Pablo Escobar and his cartel have largely faded from our consciousness of the world today, replaced by other troubles in other places. So much of that drug war took place in a setting difficult to understand, and distressing in the way that far-off troubles can often be - alarming but distant, echoing in someone else's life. In this account, we see what it means to wait month after month without the solace of logic or hope that larger forces can come to our aid, at the mercy of chance, emotion, and the decisions of people we cannot control.

Armchair Interviews says: If you want an intense view of a country at war with itself through the eyes of its victims, pick up News of a Kidnapping. Then try one of Márquez's novels."

Garcia Marquez's non-fiction
I bought this (Spanish edition) at a little shop in Montreal, expecting GGM's usual weird fiction. I was surprised to find that it wasn't weird fiction at all, but a true story (if such a thing exists). Actually, I was very disappointed throughout most of the book - it read like sappy "news" reporting in the US, all about what wonderful people the kidnap victims were, along with all their successful children & marvellous friends, etc. I had lived in Colombia for a couple of years just before the events in this book took place & was at least somewhat acquainted with some of the people & situations involved, and I am not that enthusiastic about them. The priveledged, educated, neo-liberal class in Colombia doesn't get an awful lot of sympathy from me - I was mostly surprised that GGM was so supportive of them - but then I realized that that is where he comes from. By the end of the book, I had to admit it was very intriguing & I'm glad I read it, but I think it's spoiled GGM for me, too. This book will probably change the way I see his fiction works.

Well documented, well translated
This is my first attempt at GGM's work.The author's writing style is very different in accounting the events happened during that kidnap saga.As he explains the events unfolding, he carefully adds the background information of the appropriate character(s) involved in the scene and he gets back to the present by providing the correct dose of the past.Though the reader aware of the victims killed, the heart races every time the government forces goof up and we wonder whom going to get killed.That means successful writing.The book details the exhaustive account of how all the sides acted during the period of kidnapping, how professionally and emotionally the victims' families handle the situations.The author explains them in a measured quantity rather than tiring the reader with too many deatils.

The translation is great and I can't help feeling that Edith Grossman got into GGM's mind and translate it exactly what he was trying to put it.Very rare I come across a translator like that.

Worth reading. ... Read more

Product Description
An Approach to Gabriel García Márquez's Novels-Three-One Hundred Years of Solitude

Students' Academy

About Gabriel García Márquez 6
Childhood and Early Life 8
Career as a Journalist 13
Marriage and Family Life 16
First Novella-Leaf Storm 17
One Hundred Years of Solitude 18
Popularity 20
Autumn of the Patriarch 23
A Firm Decision 25
Chronicle of a Death Foretold 26
Love in the Time of Cholera 27
Physical Ailments 28
Recent Works 29
Film 30
Writing Style 33
Realism and Magical Realism 35
Thematic Analysis of His Works 37
Legacy 41
Nobel Prize 42
Works 43
Novels 43
Novellas 44
Short Story Collections 45
Non Fiction 46
About “One Hundred Years of Solitude” 47
Historical Context and “One Hundred Years of Solitude” 50
Summary in Brief 57
Characters 61
About Major Characters 75
Major Themes 80
Motifs 88
Symbols 91
Summary and Analysis 94
Chapter 1 to Chapter 4 94
Analysis 100
Chapter 5 to Chapter 9 109
Analysis 115
Chapter 10 to Chapter 13 123
Analysis 129
Chapter 14 to Chapter 17 137
Analysis 143
Chapters 18 to Chapter 20 149
Analysis 152





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Print ISBN: 978-0-557-71281-6 ... Read more

Product Description

One of the 20th century's enduring works, One Hundred Years of Solitude is a widely beloved and acclaimed novel known throughout the world, and the ultimate achievement in a Nobel Prize–winning career.

With One Hundred Years of Solitude Gabriel García Márquez introducedLatin American literature to a world-wide readership. Translated into morethan two dozen languages, his brilliant novel of love and loss in Macondostands at the apex of 20th-century literature. --Alix Wilber ... Read more

Customer Reviews (264)

A complete literacy masterpiece!
A complete literacy masterpiece! I had been meaning to read 100 years of solitude for over 7 years but never found the time to do so until now and the book did not disappoint! Gabriel Garcia Marquez painted a whole society with his beautiful breathtaking descriptions of the town Mocondo. I loved the characters from the Buendia family and other fond myself laughing and other times pausing to contemplate his points on life through the actions of some of the characters. There is a little of everything for everyone in this book! Highly recommended!

Enchanting and Unforgettable!
Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Nobel-Prize winning One Hundred Years of Solitude is a brilliant, world-renowned novel that recounts the history of the Buendia family over a century's time. Often considered the masterpiece of his writing career, One Hundred Years takes place in the fantastical town of Macondo, which was founded by the Buendia family's patriarch, Jose Arcadio Buendia. The story begins from the first generation of Buendias, that of Jose Arcadio Buendia, and then concludes at the seventh and final generation. In this widely recognized work, (also the next best-selling Spanish novel after Miguel de Cervantes' classic, Don Quijote) Garcia Marquez weaves a tale of love and heartbreak, happiness and rancor, humor and mystery; while largely incorporating elements of his mastered magical realism in every chapter.
One Hundred Years of Solitude begins with the founding of Macondo, a small town in South America, by Jose Arcadio Buendia. He and his wife, Ursula, along with their family, leave their home in Riohacha, Colombia in the hopes of finding a better place to live. Upon arriving in the town that would soon be Macondo, the Buendia family sets up camp at a place in the woods and sleeps. That same night, Jose Arcadio Buendia dreams ofMacondo as "a noisy city with houses having mirror walls" (39). (In this excerpt, Garcia Marquez toys with the magical realism idea of mirrors that Jorge Luis Borges incorporated in many of his poems.)
After exploring, Jose Arcadio Buendia declares the land an "island" and from there, he seemingly invents a new world within Macondo, naming all sorts of things at his own whim; since "the world was so recent that many things lacked names" (42). After the official establishment of Macondo, it becomes a town often victimized by strange and supernatural events. (Some of these events are hard to understand if read or understood too literally--Mexican literary critic Luis Leal has said that "if you can explain it, then it isn't magical realism.") Garcia Marquez features ideas of magical realism, fused with other religious ideas, as well as unsettling but entertaining superstitions very much throughout the novel. To fully appreciate the Macondo that Garcia Marquez creates, you must let go of all pre-existing conventional, practical ideas regarding literature and fall into a new, fantastical version of "solitude." It is very much worth it!
One Hundred Years of Solitude, now translated into over 37 languages worldwide, is an important novel that any reader/writer should read. Gabriel Garcia Marquez has influenced many authors, mastering the genre of magical realism and putting Latin America on the literary map. One Hundred Years is entertainingly mystical, yet unsettlingly real--but above all, it is unforgettable.

One of the best books I've ever read!
If you're a fan of magical realism and Latin American literature, you MUST read this book!Garcia Marquez is an incredible writer...an absolute genius...and the translator did an amazing job.If you are not familiar with magical realism, it would be wise to read about it before reading this book so you can enjoy the book for what it is and not read it too literally.

One of my favorite books
I first read this book in college and found it to be so captivating. The story of Macondo feels very real. At the beginning we are introduced to the Buendia family and they seem really simple. It's not until the book progresses that we start to get confused with every family member having the same name. What is Marquez's point in this? I think to show that life is simple and to keep the family going in a circular motion. By the end of the book, everything seems to have gone full circle, from life to death, and inventions people make to eventually exploiting the earth. I love the slight magical realism in this book. It really adds so much quality as if to mock what we value so much on earth.

Yawn.
Characters aren't interesting. The story is not compelling. The plot is not engaging. No mystery of any kind. Just dull. Much ado ... why? ... Read more

Product Description
Con La hojarasca nació Macondo, esa población cercana a la costa atlántica colombiana que se ha convertido en uno de los grandes mitos de la literatura universal. En él transcurre la historia de un entierro imposible. Ha muerto un personaje extraño, un antiguo médico odiado por el pueblo. Un viejo coronel retirado, para cumplir una promesa, se ha empeñado en enterrarle frente a la oposición de todo el poblado y sus autoridades. Como en una tragedia griega, el viejo coronel, su hija y su nieto van a cumplir la ominosa tarea. La acción, compuesta por la descripción de los preparativos para el entierro —una media hora— y los recuerdos de un cuarto de siglo de la historia de Macondo, se narra a través de los pensamientos de estos tres personajes.
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Customer Reviews (4)

Early Macondo
If you've already read "100 Years of Solitude", you might find this early incarnation of Macondo interesting. These are a series of interlocking stories, written in the Fifties, in which some of the characters and themes we hear about later are worked out, in a tentative way. Be prepared for something rather more demanding than "Solitude", especially if you're reading it in Spanish. At this point, Garcia-Marquez was still directly under the influence of Faulkner, and it's very evident. This is not to say that it's deeper or better than the later work in any way, much to the contrary in my view. Just that it shows some of its stylistic and thematic roots more clearly. Odd that America's most influential writers (I'm thinking of Poe as well as Faulkner, and really Whitman and Melville as well) exerted their earliest influence abroad, and it may be at least in part because they were more readable in translation.

Macondo is a place to read again
If you like Garcia Marquez you probably already read "One Hundred Years of Solitude". Although this was written earlier, might be a good coming back to Macondo.

Se te gusta Garcia Marquez entonces es probable que hayas leido "Cien anos de soledad". Este es un buen retorno a Macondo.

A master piece
This is a collection of short stories. I bought this to improve my Spanish. It served it very well. I recommend this to an intermediate level students as it is written in easy vocabulary.Gabriel Garcia Marquez is a great story teller.

MUY BUENO
La hojarasca es una prueba más del talento innato del Gabriel García Márquez que hace al lector vivir y sentir el dolor, la soledad misma, y la aceptación de cosas que no se pueden cambiar.

"De todos modos, lo que suceda tenía que suceder. Es como si lo hubiese anunciado el almanaque," repite el coronel.

En su ilustración, Márquez que toca a fondo la realidad de muchos pueblos y comunidades que se aferran a una mascara de percepciones y prejuicios donde se juzga lo que no se entiende.

El doctor silencioso y eccentrico fué la escusa perfecta para un pueblo que necesitaba ventilar sus frustraciones y complejos.

El coronel en su rebeldía es el único que van en contra de la norma establecida por el pueblo y abre las puertas de su casa al doctor, talvez no por simpatía al medico solitario, pero talvez en un acto de curiosidad por entenderlo.

En lo personal me gusta como Márquez le da vos a diferentes generaciones
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Customer Reviews (1)

Clarividente
Un texto muy simple, no muy revasado, donde se puede encontrar las ideas de uno de los mas importante escritores de todo Latino America en el siglo viente y viente uno.El libro es una cuenta descubierto de su vida ymuy facil para leer porque solamente es platica entre Gabo y Plinio. Me puse de impression que son amigos desde hace mucho tiempo y eso se puede traducir para el lector por que tambien se siente muy agusto como si esta sentado con ellos. Gabo habla sobre varios partes de su vida, cresiendo y atendando la universidad y trabajando con el periodico y finalmente cuando le pega la fama con sus libros como "Cien Anos de Solitud" etc. Gabriel Marquez o Gabo se pone fllosofico sobre varios temas que el lector puede encontrar en sus libros y en la vida en general. Muy interesante especialmente para los lectores que tienen fiel con la literatura de Latino Aamerica ... Read more

Product Description
A band of adventurers find a town in the heart of the South American jungle. Their leader is Jose Arcadio Buendia, the town is called Macondo. The occasion marks the beginning: of the world, of a great family, and of a century of extraordinary events. ... Read more

Product Description
Contiene numerosas notas de pronunciación, ortografía y gramática. Indicaciones sobre el uso incorrecto de algunos términos. Información etimológica. Ejemplos de uso actual en las deficiones. Siónimos. Apéndices con las reglas ortográficas del español, los cuadros de conjugación verbal y listas de topónimos. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

See hardcover reviews
You can find a range of very positive commentary for this dictionary in the reviews of the hardcover edition.

Amazon.com doesn't seem to have this dictionary in stock very often.But if you're impatient with their special orders, this edition appears readily available from their sister site, amazon.fr . ... Read more

Product Description
Their distant, nostalgic memories of home, their sense of anonymity in a foreign land, the terrifying pang of vulnerability they feel as they step over the threshold into an alien world...These pilgrims - the ageing prostitute preparing for death by teaching her dog to weep at her grave, the panicked husband scared for the life of his injured wife, the old man who allows his mind to wander on a long-haul flight from Paris - experience with all Marquez's humour, warmth and colour, what it is to be a Latin American adrift in Europe or, indeed, any outsider living far from home. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

dont get me wrong ... Gabo is my #1 author
i love Gabo ... he is my favorite author ... i loved 100 hundred years of solitude, love in the time of cholera, of love & other demons , & all the other books ... but this one is the worst ever ... i tried to read it several times .. over & over & over ... but it was nothing but a bad bad book ...

go for any of his books except for this one ... ... Read more