One Hundred Years of Solitude

One Hundred Years of Solitude (Spanish: Cien años de soledad) is a novel by Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez. The novel was a real landmark in Latin American literature and is considered to be the best book Márquez has ever written. One Hundred Years of Solitude is translated into 37 languages and more than 30 million copies are sold. The novel was first published in 1967 in Buenos Aires.

The novel tells the story of seven generation of the Buendía family in the city of Macondo, a fictitious town in Colombia, in a period of roughly one hundred years. The story is quite complex, due to the use of many characters, who can share the same name. For instance, 22 characters are called by the name of Aurellino. The novel also describes a lot of supernatural events, as ghost sightings, as if they where true. Also, a lot of characters are much older than 100 years and one girl is even so beautiful, she becomes a part of heaven.

Latin American history also plays a huge role and some events in the novel are linked to events in history, for example the banana massacre and the many civil wars between liberals and conservatives. Nonetheless, many events are repeated, as if the next generation hasn't learned from the previous one.

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