The mystical parable novel “One Hundred Years of Solitude” was written by Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez, who died quite recently, in April 2014, but managed to become a classic of world literature and one of the greatest writers of our time during his lifetime. The Nobel Prize laureate for Literature, Marquez has written many other works, but this novel remains one of the most popular, it has been translated into 35 languages and has a total circulation of 30 million to date.
The history of writing the novel "One Hundred Years of Solitude"
The novel was written in 1967, when the author was 40 years old. By this time, Marquez managed to work as a correspondent for several Latin American newspapers, a PR manager and an editor of film scripts, and on his literary account there were several published novels and stories.
The idea of a new novel, which in the original version the writer wanted to call "Home", had been in his mind for a long time. He even managed to describe some of his characters on the pages of his previous books. The novel was conceived as a broad epic canvas describing the life of numerous representatives of seven generations of one family, so the work on it took most of Marquez's time. He had to leave all other work. Having pledged the car, Marquez gave this money to his wife so that she could support their two sons and provide the writer with paper, coffee, cigarettes and some food. I must say that in the end the family even had to sell household appliances, since there was no money at all.
As a result of continuous 18-month work, the novel One Hundred Years of Solitude was born, so unusual and original that many publishing houses where Marquez approached him simply refused to print it, not at all sure of its success with the public. The first edition of the novel was published with a circulation of only 8 thousand copies.
Chronicle of one family
In its literary genre, the novel belongs to the so-called magical realism. Reality, mysticism and fantasy are so closely intertwined in it that somehow it is simply impossible to separate them, therefore the unreality of what is happening in it becomes the most tangible reality.
"One Hundred Years of Solitude" describes the story of only one family, but this is not at all a list of events taking place with the heroes. This is a looped time that began to wind its spirals of family history with incest and ended this story with incest. The Colombian tradition of giving children the same family names further emphasizes this looping and inevitable cyclicality, feeling which all members of the Buendía clan always experience inner loneliness and accept it with philosophical doom.
In fact, it is simply impossible to retell the content of this work. Like any work of genius, it is written only for one particular reader, and that reader is you. Everyone perceives and understands it in their own way. Perhaps this is why, while many of Marquez's works have already been filmed, none of the directors undertakes to transfer the heroes of this mystical novel to the screen.
