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Guide to magical realism

A guide to magical realism

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Features

Must-read books of 2024: A look back at the year’s most exciting releases

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100 must-read classics, as chosen by our readers

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Where to start reading Gabriel Garcia Márquez’s books

Reading Remedy: what to read to transport you to a good night out

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Reading Remedy: books to help you deal with unrequited love

Leaf Storm

Nobel Laureate Gabriel García Márquez,, author of the One Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera, portrays a food company violating a small Colombia town in his vivid and powerful novel Leaf Storm. 
 
'Suddenly, as if a whirlwind had set down roots in the centre of the town, the banana company arrived, pursed by the leaf storm' 
 
Drenched by rain, the town has been decaying ever since the banana company left. Its people are sullen and bitter, so when the doctor - a foreigner who ended up the most hated man in town - dies, there is no one to mourn him. But also living in the town is the Colonel, who is bound to honour a promise made many years ago. The Colonel and his family must bury the doctor, despite the inclination of their fellow inhabitants that his corpse be forgotten and left to rot. 
 
'The most important writer of fiction in any language' Bill Clinton 
 
'Márquez is a retailer of wonders' Sunday Times 
 
'An exquisite writer, wise, compassionate and extremely funny' Sunday Telegraph

The most important writer of fiction in any language

Gabriel Garcia Marquez (1927-2014) was a short-story writer, novelist, journalist and a screenwriter from Colombia. He was a reporter for a Colombian newspaper, El Espectador, and also a foreign correspondent stationed in New York, Rome, Paris and Barcelona. Marquez is the author of numerous popular novels and short stories. He is well known for his unique literary style known as magical realism, in which he describes reality through magical events and elements. His most popular novels include Love in the Time of Cholera and One Hundred Years of Solitude. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1982.

'Suddenly, as if a whirlwind had set down roots in the center of the town, the banana company arrived, pursued by the leaf storm' 
 
A blizzard of slums descends on Macondo; the inhabitants reel at the accompanying stench. When the banana company leaves town as fast as it arrived, they are left with a void of decay. 
 
Living in this soulless wasteland is one last honourable man, who is determined to fulfil a longstanding promise, however unpalatable. 
 
Leaf Storm is re-issued on Gabriel García Márquez 's birthday to celebrate the publication of his books in ebook for the first time.

Memories of My Melancholy Whores

Memories of My Melancholy Whores is a powerful novel about a man who so far has never felt love from Nobel Laureate Gabriel García Márquez, author of the One Hundred Years of Solitude. 
 
'The year I turned ninety, I wanted to give myself the gift of a night of wild love with an adolescent virgin' 
 
On the eve of his ninetieth birthday a newspaper columnist in Colombia decides to give himself 'a night of mad love with a virgin adolescent'. But on seeing this beautiful girl he falls deeply under her spell. His love for his 'Delgadina' causes him to recall all the women he has paid to perform acts of love. And so the columnist realises he must chronicle the life of his heart, to offer it freely to the world. . . 
 
'Márquez describes this amorous, sometimes disturbing journey with the grace and vigour of a master storyteller' Daily Mail 
 
'Márquez is wonderful on the transformative and redemptive powers of love. . . storytelling magic' Tatler 
 
'Márquez writes in this lyrical, magical language that no-one else can do' Salman Rushie

There is not one stale sentence, redundant word or unfinished thought

A velvety pleasure to read... Márquez has composed, with his usual sensual gravity and Olympian humour, a love letter to the dying light.

'The year I turned ninety, I wanted to give myself a gift of a night of wild love with an adolescent virgin' 
 
He has never married, never loved and never gone to bed with a woman he didn't pay. But on finding a young girl naked and asleep on the brothel owner's bed, a passion is ignited in his heart - and he feels, for the first time, the urgent pangs of love. 
 
Memories of My Melancholy Whores is re-issued on Gabriel García Márquez 's birthday to celebrate the publication of his books as ebooks for the first time.

I'm Not Here to Give a Speech

Penguin presents I'm Not Here to Give a Speech, the complete speeches of Nobel laureate and beloved novelist Gabriel García Márquez collected and published in English for the first time. 
 
Gabriel García Márquez has charmed generations of readers with his distinctive and richly expressive style. His talent for language is seen here as never before, in the public speeches he gave throughout his extraordinary life. These speeches chart Márquez's growth as a writer and orator, from an early talk given as a teenager graduating high school to his acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize. They offer new insight into the workings of the author's mind, drawing a portrait of Marquez as a writer and as a man. 
 
This is a rare gem from a writer who touched readers across the globe. I Am Not Here to Give a Speech is a must-buy for anyone who ever fell in love with Macondo or cherished a battered copy of Love in the Time of Cholera. 
 
Praise for Gabriel García Márquez: 
 
'The greatest novel in any language of the last fifty years' Salman Rushdie on One Hundred Years of Solitude 
 
'Should be required reading for the entire human race' New York Times on One Hundred Years of Solitude 
 
'A masterpiece' Evening Standard on Chronicle of a Death Foretold 
 
'As a reading experience it is completely magical' Observer on Living to Tell the Tale 
 
'It asks to be read more than twice, and the rewards are dazzling' Observer on The Autumn of the Patriarch 
 
'Márquez writes in this lyrical, magical language that no-one else can do' Salman Rusdhie on Collected Stories

'Radiates a familiar humorous charm and robust sensuality'

This volume should fit nicely inside a Christmas stocking, perhaps belonging to a young writer

I'm Not Here... proves the Colombian to be as poetic and polemical in speaking as he was in writing

One of this century's most evocative writers

Marquez writes in this lyrical, magical language that no-one else can do

An exquisite writer, wise, compassionate and extremely funny

Throughout his life Gabriel Garcia Marquez spoke with the same passion and energy as he wrote, charming listeners with his speeches as beguilingly as he did his millions of readers. Now in this collection of speeches, translated into English for the first time, we see the wisdom and compassion of his public talks. 
 
I Am Not Here to Give a Speech records key events throughout Marquez's life, from a talk as a teenager graduating high school to his Nobel Prize acceptance speech. Written over the course of a lifetime, they chart the growth of his genius: each is a snapshot, offering new insights into the beliefs and ideas of a world-renowned storyteller. Together, they combine to create a more complete picture of Marquez the writer and the man. 
 
Preserving Marquez's unmistakable voice for future generations, I Am Not Here to Give a Speech is a must-have collection for anyone who ever fell in love with Macondo or cherished a battered copy of Love in the Time of Cholera. 
 
Translated by Edith Grossman

For the first time, the speeches of prize-winning author Gabriel Garcia Marquez are translated into English and published together in a collected edition. These writings span Marquez's entire life: from his earliest days, speaking as a teenager graduating high school, to his acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize. Taken as a whole, this collection offers a unique and fascinating insight into Marquez's long career, highlighting his concerns and beliefs both as a writer and as a man. 
 
Marquez was beloved throughout his life and celebrated posthumously as a true literary genius. This collection of previously unseen material, written in his distinctively rich and expressive style, will appeal to any Marquez fan.

In Evil Hour

In Evil Hour is the thrilling story of a Colombian society menaced by rumour and paranoia by the Nobel Laureate Gabriel García Márquez, author of the One Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera. 
 
As a small South American town sweats under an oppressive heat, an unknown person creeps through the night sticking malicious posters to walls and doors. When the contents of one poster lead to a murder, everyone knows that the town is threatened by a malevolent presence - but is there anything that the mayor, the doctor or the priest can do about it? 
 
'In Evil Hour was the book which was to inspire my own career as a novelist. I owe my writing voice to that one book!' Jim Crace 
 
'Belongs to the very best of Márquez's work...should on no account be missed' Financial Times 
 
'A splendid achievement' The Times

In Evil Hour was the book which was to inspire my own career as a novelist. I owe my writing voice to that one book!

Belongs to the very best of M&aacute;rquez's work&hellip; should on no account be missed

'César Montero was dreaming about elephants. He'd seen them at the movies on Sunday...' 
 
Moments later, César is arrested by police who clear the crowds away from the man he has just killed. 
 
But César is not the only man riled the rumours spread in his hometown - someone creeps through the streets sticking malicious posters to walls and doors. Paranoia seeps through the town - can the perpetrator be uncovered before leaving the inhabitants' sanity in tatters? 
 
In Evil Hour is re-issued on Gabriel García Márquez 's birthday to celebrate the publication of his books as ebooks for the first time.

Living to Tell the Tale

In Living to Tell the Tale Gabriel Garcia Marquez - winner of the 1982 Nobel Prize for Literature and author of One Hundred Years of Solitude - recounts his personal experience of returning to the house in which he grew up and the memories that this visit conjured. 
 
'My mother asked me to go with her to sell the house' 
 
Gabriel Garcia Marquez was twenty-three, a young man experimenting with his writing when this mother asked him to come back with her to the village of his grandparents and the memories of his Colombian childhood. 
 
In the first part of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's memoir, the Nobel Prize-winning author returns to the atmosphere and influences that shaped his formidable imagination and formed the basis of his world-famous, and much-loved, fiction. 
 
'A treasure trove, a discovery of a lost land we knew existed but couldn't find. A thrilling miracle of a book' The Times 
 
'A marvellous journey. Never less than a miracle' Sunday Times 
 
'Márquez writes in this lyrical, magical language that no one else can do' Salman Rushdie

M&aacute;rquez's greatest book. As a reading experience it is completely magical

'My mother asked me to go with her to sell the house' 
 
Gabriel García Márquez was twenty-three when his mother asked him to come with her, back to the village of Aracataca. In this first part of Gabriel García Márquez's memoir, the Nobel prize-winning author returns to the atmosphere and influences that that shaped his formidable imagination and formed the basis of his world-famous, and much-loved, fiction. 
 
Living to Tell the Tale is re-issued on Gabriel García Márquez 's birthday to celebrate the publication of his books as ebooks for the first time.

News of a Kidnapping

Gabriel García Márquez's News of a Kidnapping is a powerful retelling of actual events from a turbulent period of Colombian history. 
 
'She looked over her shoulder before getting into the car to be sure no one was following her' 
 
Pablo Escobar: billionaire drugs baron, ruthless manipulator brutal killer and jefe of the infamous Madellín cartel. A man whose importance in the international drug trade and renown for his charitable work among the poor brought him influence and power in his home country of Colombia, and the unwanted attention of the American courts. 
 
Terrified of the new Colombian President's determination to extradite him to America, Escobar found the best bargaining tools he could find: hostages. 
 
In the winter of 1990, ten relatives of Colombian politicians, mostly women, were abducted and held hostage as Escobar attempted to strong-arm the government into blocking his extradition. Two died, the rest survived, and from their harrowing stories Márquez retells, with vivid clarity, the terror and uncertainty of those dark an volatile months. 
 
'Reads with an urgency which belongs to the finest fiction. I have never read anything which gave a better sense of the way Colombia was in worst times' Daily Telegraph 
 
'Compellingly readable. A book with all the panache of Márquez's fiction, hitting home rather harder' Sunday Times 
 
'A piece of remarkable investigative journalism made all the more brilliant by the author's talent for magical storytelling' Financial Times

Marquez uses his novelist's instinct for emotional drama to give the reader a wonderfully immediate sense of his subjects' ordeal: their spiraling hopes and fears, their fantasies of escape, their desperation and despair.

Compellingly readable. A book with all the panache of M&aacute;rquez's fiction, hitting home rather harder

A story only a writer of M&aacute;rquez's stature could tell so brilliantly. A tour de force

The great strength of the book is the authority of its details. There is so much here that, as we say, no one would make up

Pablo Escobar: billionaire drugs baron, brutal killer and jefe of the infamous Medellín cartel. Terrified of the new Colombian President's determination to extradite him to America, Escobar found the best bargaining tools he could find: hostages. 
 
In the winter of 1990, ten relatives of Colombian politicians were abducted and held hostage as Escobar attempted to strong-arm the government into blocking his extradition. Márquez retells, with vivid clarity, the terror and uncertainty of those dark, volatile months. 
 
News of a Kidnapping is re-issued on Gabriel García Márquez 's birthday to celebrate the publication of his books as ebooks for the first time.

Strange Pilgrims

Strange Pilgrims is a collection of unforgettable stories about distinctive South American individuals in Europe from the Nobel laureate Gabriel García Márquez author of One Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera. 
 
'The first thing Señora Prudencia Linero noticed when she reached the port of Naples was that it had the same smell as the port of Riohacha' 
 
The twelve stories here tell of Latin Americans adrift in Europe: a bereaved father in Rome for an audience with the Pope carries a box shaped like a cello case; an aging streetwalker waits for death in Barcelona with a dog trained to weep at her grave; a panic-stricken husband takes his wife to a Parisian hospital to treat a cut and never sees her again. Combining terror and nostalgia, surreal comedy and the poetry of the commonplace, Strange Pilgrims is a triumph of storytelling by our most brilliant writer. 
 
'Celebratory and full of strange relish at life's oddness, the stories draw their strength from Márquez's generous feel for character, good and bad, boorish and innocent' William Boyd 
 
'The most important writer of fiction in any language' Bill Clinton 
 
'Often touching, often funny, always unexpected, the experience is as enriching as travel itself' New Statesman

Celebratory and full of strange relish at life's oddness. The stories draw their strength from M&aacute;rquez's generous feel for character, good and bad, boorish and innocent

Filled with greedy joys, with small pleasures, polished like apples against a sleeve

Often touching, often funny, always unexpected, the experience is as enriching as travel itself

Their nostalgic memories of home, their sense of anonymity in a foreign land, the terrifying pang of vulnerability they feel as they step over the threshold into an alien world... 
 
These pilgrims - the ageing prostitute preparing for death, the panicked husband scared for the life of his injured wife, the old man who allows his mind to wander on a long-haul flight from Paris - experience what it is to be an outsider living far from home. 
 
Strange Pilgrims is re-issued on Gabriel García Márquez 's birthday to celebrate the publication of his books as ebooks for the first time.

The Autumn of the Patriarch

Gabriel García Márquez, winner of the 1982 Nobel Prize for Literature and author of One Hundred Years of Solitude, explores the loneliness of power in Autumn of the Patriarch. 
 
'Over the weekend the vultures got into the presidential palace by pecking through the screens on the balcony windows and the flapping of their wings stirred up the stagnant time inside' 
 
As the citizens of an unnamed Caribbean nation creep through dusty corridors in search of their tyrannical leader, they cannot comprehend that the frail and withered man lying dead on the floor can be the self-styled General of the Universe. Their arrogant, manically violent leader, known for serving up traitors to dinner guests and drowning young children at sea, can surely not die the humiliating death of a mere mortal? 
 
Tracing the demands of a man whose egocentric excesses mask the loneliness of isolation and whose lies have become so ingrained that they are indistinguishable from truth, Márquez has created a fantastical portrait of despotism that rings with an air of reality. 
 
'Delights with its quirky humanity and black humour and impresses by its total originality' Vogue 
 
'Captures perfectly the moral squalor and political paralysis that enshrouds a society awaiting the death of a long-term dictator' Guardian 
 
'Márquez writes in this lyrical, magical language that no-one else can do' Salman Rushdie

It asks to be read more than twice, and the rewards are dazzling

Delights with its quirky humanity and black humour and impresses by its total originality

Captures perfectly the moral squalor and political paralysis that enshrouds a society awaiting the death of a long-term dictator

As the citizens of an unnamed Caribbean nation creep through the corridors of the presidential palace in search of their tyrannical leader, they cannot comprehend that the frail and withered man laying dead on the floor can be the self-styled General of the Universe. Their egocentric, maniacally violent leader, known for serving up traitors to dinner guests and drowning young children at sea, can surely not die the humiliating death of a mere mortal? 
 
The Autumn of the Patriarch is re-issued on Gabriel García Márquez 's birthday to celebrate the publication of his books as ebooks for the first time.

The General in His Labyrinth

The General in his Labyrinth is the compelling tale of Simón Bolívar, a hero who has been forgotten and whose power is fading, retracing his steps down the Magdalena River by the Nobel Laureate Gabriel García Márquez, author of One Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera. 
 
'It was the fourth time he had travelled along the Magdalena, and he could not escape the impression that he was retracing the steps of his life' 
 
At the age of forty-six General Simón Bolívar, who drove the Spanish from his lands and became the Liberator of South America, takes himself into exile. He makes a final journey down the Magdalene River, revisiting the cities along its shores, reliving the triumphs, passions and betrayals of his youth. Consumed by the memories of what he has done and what he failed to do, Bolívar hopes to see a way out of the labyrinth in which he has lived all his life. . .. 
 
'An exquisite writer, wise, compassionate and extremely funny' Sunday Telegraph 
 
'An imaginative writer of genius' Guardian 
 
'The most important writer of fiction in any language' Bill Clinton

A fascinating tour de force and a moving tribute to an extraordinary man

In his younger days, Simón Bolívar swept the Spanish back to Europe, liberating South America with his youthful vitality. Lonely, embittered and sickly, his power has dwindled and The Liberator enters the exile of retirement. 
 
Bolívar's journey is hindered by his own reluctance to relinquish his power. Despite the assassination attempts, jeering and humiliation he encounters, his fear of fading into the shadows keeps him clinging to the man he used to be... 
 
The General in His Labyrinth is re-issued on Gabriel García Márquez 's birthday to celebrate the publication of his books as ebooks for the first time.

No One Writes to the Colonel

Nobel Laureate Gabriel García Márquez, author of One Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera, tells a powerful tale of poverty and undying hope in his moving novel No One Writes to the Colonel. 
 
'The Colonel took the top off the coffee can and saw that there was only one spoonful left' 
 
Fridays are different. Every other day of the week, the Colonel and his ailing wife fight a constant battle against poverty and monotony, scraping together the dregs of their savings for the food and medicine that keeps them alive. But on Fridays the postman comes - and that sets a fleeting wave of hope rushing through the Colonel's ageing heart. 
 
For fifteen years he's watched the mail launch come into harbour, hoping he'll be handed an envelope containing the army pension promised to him all those years ago. Whilst he waits for the cheque, his hopes are pinned on his prize bird and the upcoming cockfighting season. But until then the bird - like the Colonel and his wife - must somehow be fed. . . 
 
'Márquez writes in this lyrical, magical language that no one else can do' Salman Rushie 
 
'Masterly. He dazzles us with powerful effect' New Statesman 
 
'One of this century's most evocative writers' Anne Tyler

Fridays are different. Every other day of the week, the Colonel and his ailing wife fight a constant battle against poverty. But on Fridays the postman comes and he hopes he'll be handed an envelope containing the army pension promised to him. Whilst he waits, his hopes are pinned on his prize bird and the upcoming cockfighting season. Until then, the bird - like the Colonel and his wife - must somehow be fed... 
 
No One Writes to the Colonel is re-issued on Gabriel García Márquez 's birthday to celebrate the publication of his books as ebooks for the first time.

Of Love and Other Demons

Nobel Prize winner and author of One Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez blends the natural with supernatural in Of Love and Other Demons - a novel which explores community, superstition and collective hysteria. 
 
'An ash-grey dog with a white blaze on its forehead burst on to the rough terrain of the market on the first Sunday of December' 
 
When a witch doctor appears on the Marquis de Casalduero's doorstep prophesising a plague of rabies in the Colombian seaport, he dismisses her claims - until he hears that his young daughter, Sierva María, was one of four people bitten by a rabid dog, and the only one to survive. 
 
Sierva María appears completely unscathed - but as rumours of the plague spread, the Marquis and his wife wonder at her continuing good health. In a town consumed by superstition, it's not long before they, and everyone else, put her survival down to a demonic possession and begin to see her supernatural powers as the cause of the town's woes. Only the young priest charged with exorcizing the evil spirit recognises the girl's sanity, but can he convince the town that it's not her that needs healing? 
 
'Superb and intensely readable' Time Out 
 
'A compassionate, witty and unforgettable masterpiece' Daily Telegraph 
 
'At once nostalgic and satiric, a resplendent fable' Sunday Times

When a witch doctor prophesizes a plague of rabies, Marquis de Casalduero dismisses her claims - until he hears his daughter was bitten by a rabid dog, and the only one to survive. 
 
She appears unscathed - but in a town consumed by superstition, they soon put her survival down to a demonic possession. Only the young priest and exorcist recognises the girl's sanity, but can he convince the town that it's not her that needs healing? 
 
Of Love and Other Demons is re-issued on Gabriel García Márquez 's birthday to celebrate the publication of his books as ebooks for the first time.

Love in the Time of Cholera

A CLASSIC STORY OF ENDURING LOVE FROM THE NOBEL PRIZE-WINNING AUTHOR 
 
'One of the greatest love stories I have ever read' Oprah, featured in Oprah's Book Club 
_______________________________ 
 
'It was inevitable: the scent of bitter almonds always reminded him of the fate of unrequited love' 
 
Fifty-one years, nine months and four days have passed since Fermina Daza rebuffed hopeless romantic Florentino Ariza's impassioned advances and married Dr Juvenal Urbino instead. During that half-century, Flornetino has fallen into the arms of many delighted women, but has loved none but Fermina. 
 
When Fermina's husband is killed trying to retrieve his pet parrot from a mango tree, Florentino seizes his chance to declare his enduring love. But can young love find new life in the twilight of their lives? 
_______________________________ 
 
'The most important writer of fiction in any language' Bill Clinton 
 
'An exquisite writer, wise, compassionate and extremely funny' Sunday Telegraph 
 
'An amazing celebration of the many kinds of love between men and women' The Times

A delight. The interlocking of the stories, the fantastical and obsessional aspects of M&aacute;rquez have never been better shown.

No lover of fiction can fail to respond to the grace of M&aacute;rquez's writing

A love story of astonishing power and delicious comedy

An amazing celebration of the many kinds of love between men and women... among M&aacute;rquez's best fiction

Few have written so passionately about the power of love

'It was inevitable: the scent of bitter almonds always reminded him of the fate of unrequited love.' 
 
Fifty-one years have passed since Fermina rebuffed Florentino and married Juvenal Urbino instead. Swearing his love to her, he lives for the day when he can court her again. When Fermina's husband is killed, Florentino seizes his chance to declare his enduring love. But can young love find new life in the twilight of their lives? 
 
Love in the Time of Cholera is re-issued on Gabriel García Márquez 's birthday to celebrate the publication of his books as ebooks for the first time.

Collected Stories

Sweeping through crumbling towns, travelling fairs and windswept ports, Gabriel García Márquez introduces a host of extraordinary characters and communities in his mesmerising tales of everyday life: smugglers, bagpipers, the President and Pope at the funeral of Macondo's revered matriarch; a very old angel with enormous wings. Teeming with the magical oddities for which his novels are loved, Márquez's stories are a delight. 
 
Gabriel García Márquez's Collected Stories are re-issued on Gabriel García Márquez 's birthday to celebrate the publication of his books as ebooks for the first time.

Chronicle of a Death Foretold

Chronicle of a Death Foretold is a compelling, moving story exploring injustice and mob hysteria by the Nobel Laureate Gabriel García Márquez, author of One Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera. 
 
'On the day they were going to kill him, Santiago Nasar got up at five-thirty in the morning to wait for the boat the bishop was coming on' 
 
Santiago Nasar is brutally murdered in a small town by two brothers. All the townspeople knew it was going to happen - including the victim. But nobody did anything to prevent the killing. Twenty seven years later, a man arrives in town to try and piece together the truth from the contradictory testimonies of the townsfolk. To at last understand what happened to Santiago, and why. . . 
 
'A masterpiece' Evening Standard 
 
'A work of high explosiveness - the proper stuff of Nobel prizes. An exceptional novel' The Times 
 
'Brilliant writer, brilliant book' Guardian

One Hundred Years of Solitude

ONE OF THE WORLD'S MOST FAMOUS BOOKS AND WINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE FOR LITERATURE 
_______________________________ 
 
'Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice' 
 
Gabriel García Márquez's great masterpiece is the story of seven generations of the Buendía family and of Macondo, the town they built. Though little more than a settlement surrounded by mountains, Macondo has its wars and disasters, even its wonders and its miracles. A microcosm of Columbian life, its secrets lie hidden, encoded in a book, and only Aureliano Buendía can fathom its mysteries and reveal its shrouded destiny. 
 
Blending political reality with magic realism, fantasy and comic invention, One Hundred Years of Solitude is one of the most daringly original works of the twentieth century. 
_______________________________ 
 
'As steamy, dense and sensual as the jungle that surrounds the surreal town of Macondo!' Oprah, Featured in Oprah's Book Club 
 
'Should be required reading for the entire human race' The New York Times 
 
'The book that sort of saved my life' Emma Thompson 
 
'No lover of fiction can fail to respond to the grace of Márquez's writing' Sunday Telegraph

The greatest novel in any language of the last 50 years

Should be required reading for the entire human race

Gabriel García Márquez has been one of the literary giants of the past century; his body of work is an undisputed cultural landmark and a touchstone for countless readers and writers alike. 
 
One Hundred Years of Solitude is a true classic, a timelessly fascinating and intricately patterned work of fiction and a joyful, irrepressible celebration of humanity. This iconic work is the perfect celebration of Marquez's extraordinary impact on the modern world and his phenomenal literary achievements.

and Other Writings

The Scandal of the Century

A new collection of journalism from one of the great titans of 20th century literature 
 
"I don't want to be remembered for One Hundred Years of Solitude or for the Nobel Prize but rather for my journalism," Gabriel García Márquez said in the final years of his life. And while some of his journalistic writings have been made available over the years, this is the first volume to gather a representative selection from across the first four decades of his career--years during which he worked as a full-time, often muckraking, and controversial journalist, even as he penned the fiction that would bring him the Nobel Prize in 1982. Here are the first pieces he wrote while working for newspapers in the coastal Colombian cities of Cartagena and Barranquilla . . . his longer, more fictionlike reportage from Paris and Rome . . . his monthly columns for Spain's El País. And while all the work points in style, wit, depth, and passion to his fiction, these fifty pieces are, more than anything, a revelation of the writer working at the profession he believed to be "the best in the world." 
 
'García Márquez always thought of himself as a journalist first and foremost and this brilliant collection goes a long way towards justifying that belief.' Salman Rushdie

García Márquez always thought of himself as a journalist first and foremost and this brilliant collection goes a long way towards justifying that belief. Or, at least, it puts his journalism on the same level as his fiction, which is quite some level.

The articles and columns in The Scandal of the Century demonstrate that his forthright, lightly ironical voice just seemed to be there, right from the start. . . . He's among those rare great fiction writers whose ancillary work is almost always worth finding. . . . He had a way of connecting the souls in all his writing, fiction and nonfiction, to the melancholy static of the universe.

In his journalism, García Márquez's prose was as precise, euphonious and inventive as it was in his fiction. Only a magician of a translator like Anne McLean could get it right. For anyone who has been enthralled by One Hundred Years of Solitude, The Scandal of the Century is an essential book.

Juan Gabriel Vásquez, author of The Sound of Things Falling

Gabriel García Márquez was born in Aracataca, Colombia, in 1927. He studied at the National University of Colombia in Bogotá, and later worked as a reporter for the Colombian newspaper El Espectador and as a foreign correspondent in Rome, Paris, Barcelona, Caracas and New York. He is the author of several novels and collections of stories, including Eyes of a Blue Dog (1947), Leaf Storm (1955), No One Writes to the Colonel (1958), In Evil Hour (1962), Big Mama's Funeral (1962), One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967), Innocent Erendira and Other Stories (1972), The Autumn of the Patriarch (1975), Chronicle of a Death Foretold (1981), Love in the Time of Cholera (1985), The General in His Labyrinth (1989), Strange Pilgrims (1992), Of Love and Other Demons (1994) and Memories of My Melancholy Whores (2005). Many of his books are published by Penguin. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982. Gabriel García Márquez died in 2014.

"I don't want to be remembered for One Hundred Years of Solitude or for the Nobel Prize but rather for my journalism," Gabriel García Márquez said in the final years of his life. And while some of his journalistic writings have been made available over the years, this is the first volume to gather a representative selection from across the first four decades of his career - years during which he worked as a full-time, often muckraking, and controversial journalist, even as he penned the fiction that would bring him the Nobel Prize in 1982. 
 
The Scandal of the Century brings together the first pieces he wrote while working for newspapers in the coastal Colombian cities of Cartagena and Barranquilla . . . his longer, more fiction-like reportage from Paris and Rome . . . his monthly columns for Spain's El País. And while all the work points to his fiction in its style, wit, depth, and passion, these fifty pieces are, more than anything, a revelation of the writer working at the profession he believed to be 'the best in the world'.

Innocent Erendira and Other Stories

Innocent Eréndira and Other Stories is a collection of short stories from the Nobel Prize winner and author of One Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez. 
 
'Eréndira was bathing her grandmother when the wind of misfortune began to blow' 
 
While her grotesque and demanding grandmother retires to bed, Eréndira still has floors to wash, sheets to iron, and a peacock to feed. The never-ending chores leave the young girl so exhausted that's he collapses into bed with the candle still glowing on a nearby table - and is fast asleep when it topples over. . . 
 
Eight hundred and seventy-two thousand, three hundred and fifteen pesos, her grandmother calculates, is the amount that Eréndira must repay for the loss of the house. As she is dragged by her grandmother from town to town and hawked to soldiers, smugglers and traders, Eréndira feels herself dying. Can the love of a virgin save the young whore from her hell? 
 
'It becomes more and more fun to read. It shows what "fabulous" really means' Time Out 
 
'Márquez writes in this lyrical, magical language that no-one else can do' Salman Rushdie 
 
'One of this century's most evocative writers' Anne Tyler

Whilst her demanding grandmother retires to bed, Eréndira has floors to wash, sheets to iron, and a peacock to feed. Exhausted, she collapses into bed, toppling over a glowing candle... 
 
Her grandmother insists Eréndira must repay her for the loss of the house. As she is dragged from town to town and hawked to soldiers and traders, Eréndira feels herself dying. Can the love of a virgin save the young whore from her hell? 
 
Innocent Erendira and Other Stories is re-issued on Gabriel García Márquez 's birthday to celebrate the publication of his books as ebooks for the first time.

The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor

Gabriel Garcia Marquez, winner of the 1982 Nobel Prize for Literature and author of One Hundred Years of Solitude, started his literary career with the publication of The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor . . . 
 
'On February 22 we were told that we would be returning to Columbia' 
 
In 1955 eight crew members of Caldas, a Colombian destroyer, were swept overboard. Velasco alone survived, drifting on a raft for ten days without food or water. Marquez retells the survivor's amazing tale of endurance, from his loneliness and thirst to his determination to survive. 
 
The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor was Marquez's first major work, published in a Colombian newspaper, El Espectador, in 1955 and then in book form in 1970. 
 
'The story of Velasco on his raft, his battle with sharks over a succulent fish, his hallucinations, his capture of a seagull which he was unable to eat, his subsequent droll rescue, has all the grip of archetypal myth. Reads like an epic' Independent 
 
'A master storyteller' Daily Mail 
 
'Garcia Marquez is a retailer of wonders' Sunday Times

The story of Velasco on his raft, his battle with sharks over a succulent fish, his hallucinations, his capture of a seagull which he was unable to eat, his subsequent droll rescue, has all the grip of archetypal myth. Reads like an epic.

'On February 22 we were told that we would be returning to Columbia.' 
 
In 1955, eight crew members of Caldas, a Colombian destroyer, were swept overboard. Velasco alone survived, drifting on a raft for ten days without food or water. Márquez retells the survivor's amazing tale, from his loneliness and thirst, to his determination to survive. 
 
The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor was Márquez's first major, and controversial, work, published in Colombian newspaper El Espectador, in 1955. It is being re-issued on Gabriel García Márquez's birthday to celebrate the publication of his books as ebooks for the first time.

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A poignant meditation on the nature of desire, and the enduring power of love, Gabriel García Márquez's Love in the Time of Cholera is translated from the Spanish by Edith Grossman in Penguin Modern Classics. 
 
Florentino Ariza is a hopeless romantic who falls passionately for the beautiful Fermina Daza, but finds his love tragically rejected. Instead Fermina marriesdistinguished doctor Juvenal Urbino, while Florentino can only wait silently for her. He can never forget his first and only true love. Then, fifty-one years, nine months and four days later, Fermina's husband dies unexpectedly. At last Florentino has another chance to declare his feelings and discover if a passion that has endured for half a century will remain unrequited, in a rich, fantastical and humane celebration of love in all its many forms. 
 
Gabriel García Márquez (b. 1928) was born in Aracataca, Colombia. He is the author of several novels, including Leaf Storm (1955), One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967), The Autumn of the Patriarch (1975) Chronicle of a Death Foretold (1981) and The General in His Labyrinth (1989). He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982. 
 
If you enjoyed Love in the Time of Cholera, you might like Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude, also available in Penguin Modern Classics. 
 
'The nearest thing to sensual pleasure prose can offer' 
Daily Telegraph 
 
'An amazing celebration of the many kinds of love between men and women... among Márquez's best fiction' 
The Times 
 
'The greatest luxury ... is the eerie, entirely convincing suspension of the laws of reality ... the agelessness of the human story as told by one of this century's most evocative writers' 
Anne Tyler, author of The Accidental Tourist

Florentino Ariza has never forgotten his first love. He has waited nearly a lifetime in silence since his beloved Fermina married another man. No woman can replace her in his heart. But now her husband is dead. Finally - after fifty-one years, nine months and four days - Florentino has another chance to declare his eternal passion and win her back. Will love that has survived half a century remain unrequited?

Famously associated with the term 'magical realism', Marquez is probably South America's most famous literary export

Equally tragic, joyful and comical, Gabriel García Márquez's masterpiece of magical realism, One Hundred Years of Solitude is a seamless blend of fantasy and reality, translated from the Spanish by Gregory Rabassa in Penguin Modern Classics. 
 
Gabriel García Márquez's great masterpiece is the story of seven generations of the Buendía family and of Macondo, the town they have built. Though little more than a settlement surrounded by mountains, Macondo has its wars and disasters, even its wonders and miracles. A microcosm of Columbian life, its secrets lie hidden, encoded in a book and only Aureliano Buendía can fathom its mysteries and reveal its shrouded destiny. Blending political reality with magic realism, fantasy with comic invention, One Hundred Years of Solitude is one of the most daringly original works of the twentieth century. 
 
Gabriel García Márquez (b. 1928) was born in Aracataca, Colombia. He is the author of several novels, including Leaf Storm (1955), One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967), The Autumn of the Patriarch (1975), Chronicle of a Death Foretold (1981) and The General in His Labyrinth (1989). He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982. 
 
If you enjoyed One Hundred Years of Solitude, you might like Love in the Time of Cholera, also available in Penguin Modern Classics. 
 
'With a single bound Gabriel García Márquez leaps on the stage with Günter Grass and Vladimir Nabokov ... dazzling' 
The New York Times

Getting lost and succumbing to the mastery of Gabriel García Márquez's storytelling is all part of the joy of this epic tale ... This incredible novel put me under a spell

An acknowledged masterpiece, this is the story of seven generations of the Buendía family and of Macondo, the town they have built. Though little more than a settlement surrounded by mountains, Macondo has its wars and disasters, even its wonders and miracles. A microcosm of Columbian life, its secrets lie hidden, encoded in a book and only Aureliano Buendía can fathom its mysteries and reveal its shrouded destiny. Blending political reality with magic realism, fantasy with comic invention, One Hundred Years of Solitude is one of the most daringly original works of the twentieth century.

Gabriel García Márquez

The master of magic realism’s slim and inventive last novel is a tale of forbidden love in later life . . . Inventively enjoyable and working to its surprising, pleasing ending. I read it straight through in one sitting, then got up the next day and did it again

A novel both sexy and disturbing. The novel’s chief concern is love, or more specifically sex – a subject Marquez always accorded the diligent, amused and unashamed attention it deserves. The lasting impression of Until August is one of deep feeling, astutely observed and beautifully conveyed

Sunny, sultry, even tipsy, but with a genuine sting

Though exceptional, fully developed female characters abound in Gabriel García Márquez’s work, only in his last novel, Until August, is a woman the uncontested protagonist on her own journey of self-discovery. A remarkable book

No writer since Dickens was so widely read, and so deeply loved, as Gabriel García Márquez

One of the greatest visionary writers – and one of my favourites from the time I was young

Few writers can be said to have written books that have changed the whole course of literature. Gabriel García Márquez did just that

The greatest Hispanic novelist since Cervantes

An exquisite writer, wise, compassionate and extremely funny

Contains enough tenderness and beauty to recommend it to García Márquez’s many fans

Delivers graceful insight into the fickle human heart, serving as an absorbing epilogue to García Márquez’s towering oeuvre

Sitting alone, overlooking the still and blue lagoon, Ana Magdalena Bach surveys the men of the hotel bar. She is happily married and has no reason to escape the world she has made with her husband and children. And yet, every August, she travels here to the island where her mother is buried, and for one night takes a new lover. 
 
Amid sultry days and tropical downpours, lotharios and conmen, Ana journeys further each year into the hinterland of her desire, and the fear that sits quietly at her heart. 
 
Constantly surprising and wonderfully sensual, Until August is a profound meditation on freedom, regret, and the mysteries of love, from one of the greatest writers the world has ever known.

Gabriel García Márquez

Praise for Until August

The master of magic realism’s slim and inventive last novel is a tale of forbidden love in later life . . . Inventively enjoyable and working to its surprising, pleasing ending. I read it straight through in one ...

A novel both sexy and disturbing. The novel’s chief concern is love, or more specifically sex – a subject Marquez always accorded the diligent, amused and unashamed attention it deserves. The lasting impression o ...

Sunny, sultry, even tipsy, but with a genuine sting

The master of magic realism’s slim and inventive last novel is a tale of forbidden love in later life . . . Inventively enjoyable and working to its surprising, pleasing ending. I read it straight through in one ...

A novel both sexy and disturbing. The novel’s chief concern is love, or more specifically sex – a subject Marquez always accorded the diligent, amused and unashamed attention it deserves. The lasting impression o ...

Sunny, sultry, even tipsy, but with a genuine sting

The master of magic realism’s slim and inventive last novel is a tale of forbidden love in later life . . . Inventively enjoyable and working to its surprising, pleasing ending. I read it straight through in one ...

A novel both sexy and disturbing. The novel’s chief concern is love, or more specifically sex – a subject Marquez always accorded the diligent, amused and unashamed attention it deserves. The lasting impression o ...

Sunny, sultry, even tipsy, but with a genuine sting

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