Question

One Hundred Years of Solitude, an iconic work of Magic Realism, was written by:

• A. Isabel Allende
• B. Gabriel Garcia Marquez
• C. Italo Calvino
• D. Jorge Louis Borges

Answer 1

Answer:

B. Gabriel Garcia Marquez

About Gabriel García Márquez

• Gabriel García Márquez (1927–2014) was a prominent Colombian novelist, short-story writer, screenwriter, and journalist.
• He is widely regarded as one of the most significant authors of the 20th century, particularly known for popularizing the literary style known as Magic Realism.
• In 1982, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for his novels and short stories, "in which the fantastic and the realistic are combined in a richly composed world of imagination, reflecting a continent's life and conflicts."
• He was a key figure in the Latin American literary boom of the 1960s and 1970s, which brought the work of many Latin American writers to a global audience.

One Hundred Years of Solitude (Cien años de soledad)

• Published in 1967, One Hundred Years of Solitude is considered his magnum opus and one of the most important works in the Spanish language.
• The novel chronicles the multi-generational story of the Buendía family, whose patriarch, José Arcadio Buendía, founds the mythical town of Macondo.
• It explores themes such as solitude, the cyclical nature of time, the inescapability of the past, history, myth, and the blurred lines between reality and fantasy.
• The narrative spans over a century, depicting the rise and fall of Macondo and the recurring patterns of love, war, and tragedy within the Buendía lineage.

Magic Realism

• Magic Realism is a literary genre in which magical elements or improbable events are interwoven into a realistic setting, often presented with a mundane or matter-of-fact tone.
• Gabriel García Márquez is considered one of its foremost exponents, and One Hundred Years of Solitude is often cited as the quintessential example of the genre.
• In the novel, fantastical occurrences (like levitating priests, a woman who ascends to heaven, or a rain of yellow flowers) are depicted as normal parts of everyday life, challenging the reader's perception of reality.

Other Notable Works by Gabriel García Márquez

• Love in the Time of Cholera (1985): A romantic epic spanning over fifty years.
• Chronicle of a Death Foretold (1981): A novella that recounts the events leading up to a murder, told in a journalistic style.
• The Autumn of the Patriarch (1975): A novel about the life of an archetypal dictator.
• No One Writes to the Colonel (1961): A novella depicting the stoic wait of an old, impoverished colonel for his pension.