On publication,  this book was an instant hit, and went on to be translated into almost thirty languages. Throughout the years it has continued to garner critical as well as commercial success, and more than being considered one of Latin America’s greatest books, it is often mooted as one of the best books ever committed to paper. After Don Quixote it is the highest-selling Spanish language book of all time.

The story is based around the multiple generations of the Buendía family, based in a fictional town – Macondo – in García Márquez’s homeland, Colombia. The novel is the primary example of magical realism, a genre that has become – largely as a result of ‘Gago’ – somewhat synonymous with Latin American literature. Many authors, such as Isabel Allende and her chronicles of the Trueba family in La Casa de los Espiritus for example, have been hugely influenced by him. The narrative is exceptional, with wonderful transgressions from genre to genre and a blurring of time that serves to create non-sequential prose which allows the reader plenty of opportunities to engage with the text. “It was as if God had decided to put to the test every capacity for surprise and was keeping the inhabitants of Macondo in a permanent alternation between excitement and disappointment, doubt and revelation, to such an extreme that no one knew for certain where the limits of reality lay.” The same can be said for García Márquez’s work, the reader’s experience, and much Latin American literature.

This magnum opus was published by García Márquez after 15 months of near solitude himself and was his escape from writers block: his previous major work was published five years previously. I doubt he could have imagined the huge success that awaited him, but his book was projected not only on to the bestseller lists but was also the archetype of the Boom generation. Therefore the book, along with other key works of the period such as La Muerte de Artemio Cruz (Carlos Fuentes), La Casa Verde (Mario Vargas Llosa), and Rayuela (Julio Cortázar), served to propel Latin America firmly onto the worldwide cultural scene and establish a platform for years to come. Due simply to this long-standing effect, the book is worth reading whether you enjoy the story or not. If you do enjoy it then rest assured it will most likely be one of those books that you remember for a long time. García Márquez himself was surprised at the book’s popularity, but no matter what it is indispensable reading for Latin Americans or those who study it: he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982 largely on the back of its success for “reflecting a continent’s life and conflicts”, to which he responded that “in giving me the prize they have taken into account the literature of the subcontinent and have awarded me as a way of awarding all of this literature”.

by Tom Winterbottom