One Hundred Years of Solitude
Gabriel García Márquez, 1967
Fantasy Contemporary fictionLiterary fiction
A family and a town live through a century of wars, omens, loves and repetitions, told in prose where the impossible arrives like weather. The prose is lyrical and melancholic, creating a sense of wonder as time and repetition loop through a sprawling family saga.
Feels like wonder, melancholy and tenderness. About solitude, family and time.
Who it’s for
You may like «One Hundred Years of Solitude» if you enjoy lush, magical realism and deep family histories. Be aware that the cyclical nature of the narrative and its repetitive themes can be demanding.
Why read it
This novel gives you a unique way to see how history and memory shape the lives of a community across generations.
A page from the book
The moment you realise time isn’t passing but turning in circles.
—Qué quería —murmuró—, el tiempo pasa.—Así es,—dijo Úrsula—, pero no tanto.Al decirlo, tuvo conciencia de estar dando la misma réplica que recibió del coronel Aureliano Buendía en su celda de sentenciado, y una vez más se estremeció con la comprobación de que el tiempo no pasaba, como ella lo acababa de admitir, sino que daba vueltas en redondo. Gabriel García Márquez.García Márquez drew on his grandparents’ house in Aracataca, where his grandmother told ghost stories as if they were ordinary news.
Books that feel like this
More by Gabriel García Márquez
Cien años de soledad
Gabriel García Márquez, 1967
Seven generations of the Buendía family in a town where magnets, ice and alchemy are real—and solitude runs in the blood.
Where to get it
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Questions readers ask
- Is One Hundred Years of Solitude for me?
- You may like «One Hundred Years of Solitude» if you enjoy lush, magical realism and deep family histories. Be aware that the cyclical nature of the narrative and its repetitive themes can be demanding.
- What is One Hundred Years of Solitude like?
- The prose is lyrical and melancholic, creating a sense of wonder as time and repetition loop through a sprawling family saga. Feels like wonder, melancholy and tenderness. About solitude, family and time.
- What should I read after One Hundred Years of Solitude?
- If you liked One Hundred Years of Solitude, try The Martian Chronicles (Ray Bradbury), The House of the Spirits (Isabel Allende) and To the Lighthouse (Virginia Woolf).
A taste of the feed
How the human mind fights against the chaos of time and the weight of the past.
Escribo, ella escribió, que la memoria es frágil y el transcurso de una vida es muy breve y sucede todo tan deprisa, que no alcanzamos a ver la relación entre los acontecimientos, no podemos medir la consecuencia de los actos, creemos en la ficción del tiempo, en el presente, el pasado y el futuro, pero puede ser también que todo ocurre simultáneamente, como decían las tres hermanas Mora, que eran capaces de ver en el espacio los espíritus de todas las épocas. Por eso mi abuela Clara escribía en sus cuadernos, para ver las cosas en su dimensión real y para burlar a la mala memoria.
The House of the Spirits · Isabel Allende
The water you step into is never only yours.
The water she first stepped into minutes ago is long gone and yet it is here, past and present and future inexorably coupled, like time made incarnate. This is the covenant of water: that they’re all linked inescapably by their acts of commission and omission, and no one stands alone.
The Covenant of Water · Abraham Verghese
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