No One Writes To The Colonel

Written with compassionate realism and wit, the stories in this mesmerizing collection depict the disparities of town and village life in South America, of the frightfully poor and outrageously rich, of memories and illusions, and of lost opportunities and present joys.

Renowned as a master of magical realism, Gabriel Garcia Marquez has long delighted readers around the world with his exquisitely crafted prose. Brimming with unforgettable characters and set in exotic locales, his fiction transports readers to a world that is at once fanciful, haunting, and real. Leaf Storm, Gabriel Garcia Marquez's first novella, introduces the mythical village of Macondo, a desolate town beset by torrents of rain, where a man must fulfill a promise made years earlier. No One Writes to the Colonel is a novella of life in a decaying tropical town in Colombia with an unforgettable central character. Chronicle of a Death Foretold is a dark and profound story of three people joined together in a fatal act of violence.

One of the twentieth 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. The novel tells the story of the rise and fall of the mythical town of Macondo through the history of the Buendía family. Rich and brilliant, it is a chronicle of life, death, and the tragicomedy of humankind. In the beautiful, ridiculous, and tawdry story of the Buendía family, one sees all of humanity, just as in the history, myths, growth, and decay of Macondo, one sees all of Latin America. Love and lust, war and revolution, riches and poverty, youth and senility, the variety of life, the endlessness of death, the search for peace and truth—these universal themes dominate the novel. Alternately reverential and comical, One Hundred Years of Solitude weaves the political, personal, and spiritual to bring a new consciousness to storytelling. Translated into dozens of languages, this stunning work is no less than an account of the history of the human race.

NOBEL PRIZE WINNER • From the author of One Hundred Years of Solitude comes the gripping story of the murder of a young aristocrat that puts an entire society—not just a pair of murderers—on trial. A man returns to the town where a baffling murder took place 27 years earlier, determined to get to the bottom of the story. Just hours after marrying the beautiful Angela Vicario, everyone agrees, Bayardo San Roman returned his bride in disgrace to her parents. Her distraught family forced her to name her first lover; and her twin brothers announced their intention to murder Santiago Nasar for dishonoring their sister. Yet if everyone knew the murder was going to happen, why did no one intervene to stop it? The more that is learned, the less is understood, as the story races to its inexplicable conclusion.

Village life in South America is the central concern of these seven short stories.

A pitch black, rainy night in a small Iranian town. Inside his house the Colonel is immersed in thought. Memories are storming in. Memories of his wife. Memories of the great patriots of the past, all of them assassinated or executed. Memories of his children, who had joined the different factions of the 1979 revolution. There is a knock on the door. Two young policemen have come to summon the Colonel to collect the tortured body of his youngest daughter and bury her before sunrise. The Islamic Revolution, like every other revolution in history, is devouring its own children. And whose fault is that? This shocking diatribe against the failures of the Iranian left over the last fifty years does not leave one taboo unbroken.

One of Gabriel García Márquez’s most intricate and ambitious works, The Autumn of the Patriarch is a brilliant tale of a Caribbean tyrant and the corruption of power. From charity to deceit, benevolence to violence, fear of God to extreme cruelty, the dictator of The Autumn of the Patriarch embodies the best and the worst of human nature. Gabriel García Márquez, the renowned master of magical realism, vividly portrays the dying tyrant caught in the prison of his own dictatorship. Employing an innovative, dreamlike style, and overflowing with symbolic descriptions, the novel transports the listener to a world that is at once fanciful and real.

In Evil Hour is the thrilling story about the smears, defamations, infidelities, and torrential rains that afflict a small Colombian town, and the sacrifice of a boy that brings torment and chaos to an end, from the masterful Gabriel García Márquez, author of One Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera. One morning, slanderous posters start appearing all over the town, revealing family secrets and maligning individuals. Ghosts of the past reappear, along with old feuds and infidelities. Torrential rains then flood the town and chaos is everywhere. Neighbors suspect each other, yet no one knows who is responsible. Finally, a boy is made the scapegoat and tragedy ensues. In Evil Hour contains vivid characters who reflect the humor and pathos of everyday life. This brooding novel clearly points the way to the flowering of García Márquez’s genius in his later One Hundred Years of Solitude.

Contains Leaf Storm, The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World, A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings, Blacaman the Good, Vendor of Miracles, The Last Voyage of the Ghost Ship, Monologue of Isabel Watching It Rain in Macondo, Nabo

Written with compassionate realism and wit, the stories in this mesmerizing collection depict the disparities of town and village life in South America, of the frightfully poor and outrageously rich, of memories and illusions, and of lost opportunities and present joys. Stories within this collection include “No One Writes to the Colonel,” “Tuesday Siesta,” “One of These Days,” “There Are No Thieves in This Town,” “Balthazar's Marvelous Afternoon,” “Montiel's Widow,” “One Day after Saturday,” “Artificial Roses,” and “Big Mama's Funeral.”