One Hundred Years of Solitude (, ) is a 1967 novel by Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez that tells the multi-generational story of the Buendía family, whose patriarch, José Arcadio Buendía, founded the fictitious town of Macondo. The novel is often cited as one of the supreme achievements in world literature. It was recognized as one of the most important works of the Spanish language during the 4th International Conference of the Spanish Language held in Cartagena de Indias in March 2007.

The magical realist style and thematic substance of the book established it as an important representative novel of the literary Latin American Boom of the 1960s and 1970s, which was stylistically influenced by Modernism (European and North American) and the Cuban Vanguardia (Avant-Garde) literary movement.

Since it was first published in May 1967 in Buenos Aires by Editorial Sudamericana, the book has been translated into 46 languages and sold more than 50 million copies.One Hundred years of Solitude, by Gabriel García Márquez, 2003, Harper Collins: New York, , post-script section entitled: 'P.S. Insights, Interviews & More' pp. 2–12 The novel, considered García Márquez's magnum opus, remains widely acclaimed and is recognized as one of the most significant works both in the Hispanic literary canon and in world literature.

The novel was adapted into an authorized TV series executive produced by García Márquez's sons, and ran for a total of 16 episodes on Netflix.

Background In 1965, Gabriel García Márquez was driving to Acapulco for a vacation with his family when he thought of the beginning for a new book; he then turned his car around, asked his wife to manage the family's finances for the coming months, and drove back home to Mexico City. For the next year and a half, García Márquez spent his time writing what would eventually become One Hundred Years of Solitude. Though inspired by Colombian history and his experiences as a journalist, García Márquez was greatly influenced by his maternal grandparents: Nicolás Ricardo Márquez and Tranquilina Iguarán Cotes. A decorated veteran of the Thousand Days' War, Ricardo Márquez's accounts of the rebellion against the conservative Colombian government led his grandson to a socialist outlook. Meanwhile, Tranquilina Iguarán Cotes' superstitious beliefs became the foundation of the book's style. The couple's house in Aracataca where García Márquez spent his childhood inspired him to make Macondo his book's setting.

García Márquez was one of the four Latin American novelists first included in the literary Latin American Boom of the 1960s and 1970s; the other three were the Peruvian Mario Vargas Llosa, the Argentine Julio Cortázar, and the Mexican Carlos Fuentes. In 1967, the book earned García Márquez international fame as a novelist of the magical realism movement within Latin American literature."The Modern World". Web, www.themodernword.com/gabo/. April 17, 2010 The English translation by Gregory Rabassa was published in 1970; García Márquez famously praised Rabassa's work, stating that he preferred the English translation to his original Spanish text.

Plot

The book tells the story of seven generations of the Buendía family in the town of Macondo. The founders of Macondo, José Arcadio Buendía and Úrsula Iguarán, leave their hometown after José Arcadio kills Prudencio Aguilar after a cockfight for suggesting José Arcadio was impotent. One night of their emigration journey, while camping on a riverbank, José Arcadio dreams of "Macondo", a city of mirrors that reflected the world in and about it. Upon awakening, he decides to establish Macondo at the riverside; after days of wandering the jungle, his founding of Macondo is utopic.

José Arcadio Buendía believes Macondo to be surrounded by water, and from that island, he invents the world according to his perceptions. Soon after its founding, Macondo becomes a town frequented by unusual and extraordinary events that involve the generations of the Buendía family, who are unable or unwilling to escape their periodic (mostly self-inflicted) misfortunes. For years, the town has been solitary and unconnected to the outside world, except for the annual visit of a band of Gypsies, who show the townspeople scientific discoveries such as magnets, telescopes, and ice. The leader of the Gypsies, a man named Melquíades, maintains a close friendship with José Arcadio, who becomes increasingly withdrawn, obsessed with investigating the mysteries of the universe presented to him by the Gypsies. José Arcadio Buendía's firstborn son, José Arcadio, flees with the gypsies after an affair with the free-spirited fortune-teller Pilar Ternera, prompting Ursula to search for him and return with refugees. The Buendías adopt Rebeca, a young orphan girl who consumes earth and bites her fingernails, after visiting Macondo carrying her parents' bones. Rebeca unknowingly infects the town with insomnia, causing the residents to lose their memory; Melquíades cures them of the plague and later dies of old age. José Arcadio reunites with the Buendías, covered in tattoos. His erratic behavior and his scandalous marriage to Rebeca caused his mother, Ursula, to banish them. Amaranta (José Arcadio’s daughter) rejected Pietro Crespi due to her rivalry with Rebeca, leaving the latter to die by suicide. She spent years remaining single and continued her life as a spinster after she accidentally burned her hand. Ultimately, José Arcadio Buendía is driven insane from his impulsive curiosity and paranoia, speaking only in Latin, and is tied to a chestnut tree by his family for many years until his death, causing yellow petals to rain over Macondo.

Eventually, Macondo becomes exposed to the outside world and the government of newly independent Colombia, with Don Apolinar Moscote as Macondo's first mayor. A rigged election between the Conservative and Liberal parties is held in town, inspiring Aureliano Buendía (José Arcadio’s secondborn son) to join a civil war against the Conservative government. He becomes an iconic revolutionary leader, fighting for many years, losing 32 battles, fathering seventeen sons who share his name, and surviving multiple attempts on his life, but ultimately tires of war and signs a peace treaty with the Conservatives. Disillusioned, he returns to Macondo and spends the rest of his life making tiny goldfishes in his workshop before he dies standing at the chestnut tree. José Arcadio died from a mysterious gunshot, leaving a trail of blood towards the Buendías' house, while Rebeca remained isolated out of bitterness. During the civil war, Arcadio (José Arcadio's and Pilar Ternera's son) becomes a ruthless dictator as he begins terrorizing Macondo through warfare before being punished by Úrsula and later sentenced to death by the conservative firing squad. He even fathers three children (the Segundo twins and Remedios the Beauty) with Santa Sofía de la Piedad before his demise.

Years after the civil war, the railroad arrives in Macondo, bringing new technology and many foreign settlers. An American fruit company establishes a banana plantation outside the town and builds its own segregated village across the river. Aureliano Segundo's affairs with Petra Cotes make him wealthy through increased livestock, while his twin brother, José Arcadio Segundo, involves cockfighting and navigating river obstacles to Macondo. After the carnival massacre, Aureliano Segundo also made a harsh decision to marry an impoverished aristocratic noble, Fernanda del Carpio, as his wife. Fernanda's strict upbringing strains the relationship with the Buendía family, and Úrsula loses her matriarchal role as she grows blind and old before her death. Remedios the Beauty left her family to ascend to heaven after witnessing several men die while watching her beauty. Meme, Aureliano Segundo's daughter, grew rebellious against her mother, Fernanda, and she had a romantic affair with a young mechanic trailed by yellow butterflies, Mauricio Babilonia; Fernanda had Mauricio shot, leaving him paralysed for the rest of his life, and Meme became permanently silent. This ushers in a period of prosperity that ends in tragedy as the Colombian army massacres thousands of striking plantation workers, an incident based on the Banana Massacre of 1928. José Arcadio Segundo, the only survivor of the massacre, finds no evidence of the massacre, and the surviving townspeople deny or refuse to believe it happened. While hiding from Fernanda, José Arcadio Segundo spends years secluded in Melquíades' room studying parchment. During four years of ceaseless rainfall, Aureliano Segundo left Fernanda and the Buendías to spend years with Petra Cotes, finding treasure and becoming impoverished after losing his livestock. The two brothers died at the same time, with their graves getting mixed up by the drunkards, while their mother, Santa Sofía de la Piedad, left Macondo with no intention of supporting the Buendías. With Fernanda's passing, her son, José Arcadio, took over the house until he discovered Úrsula's treasure hidden under her bed; he squandered all of Úrsula's fortune to build a swimming pool and invited the four oldest children, and he abused them. In retaliation, the four adolescents drowned José Arcadio and stole the fortune, leaving the Buendías house completely broke.

By the novel's end, Macondo has fallen into a decrepit, near-abandoned state after the deluge and capitalist exploitation from the Banana Company. The relatives of the Buendías all die from their misfortune, natural causes, and old age, with the only remaining relatives: Amaranta Úrsula and her nephew Aureliano, whose parentage is hidden by his grandmother Fernanda; he and Amaranta Úrsula unknowingly begin an incestuous relationship. They have a child born with a pig's tail, fulfilling the long-dead matriarch Úrsula's lifelong fear. Amaranta Úrsula dies in childbirth, and the child is devoured by ants, leaving Aureliano as the last member of the family. Completely alone in abandoned Macondo, Aureliano deciphers an encrypted manuscript Melquíades left behind generations earlier. The manuscript reveals every fortune and misfortune of the Buendía family's generations who lived through a hundred years. As Aureliano reads the manuscript, a windstorm gathers around him, and he learns from the documents that the Buendía family is doomed to be wiped out from the face of the Earth because of their actions. In the last sentence of the book, the narrator describes Aureliano reading this last line just as the entire town of Macondo is scoured from existence.

Characters

First generation

José Arcadio Buendía José Arcadio Buendía is the patriarch of the Buendía family and the founder of Macondo.Gordo-Guarinos, Francisco. Cien años de soledad. Barcelona: Editorial Vosgos, S.A., 1977. Buendía leaves his hometown in Riohacha Municipality, Colombia, along with his wife Úrsula Iguarán, after being haunted by the corpse of Prudencio Aguilar (a man Buendía killed in a duel), who constantly bleeds from his wound and tries to wash it. One night while camping at the side of a river, Buendía dreams of a city of mirrors named Macondo and decides to establish the town in this location. José Arcadio Buendía is an introspective and inquisitive man of massive strength and energy who spends more time on his scientific pursuits than with his family. He flirts with alchemy and astronomy and becomes increasingly withdrawn from his family and community. He eventually goes insane and is tied to a chestnut tree until his death.

Úrsula Iguarán