As Melquiades excites Buendia's father with new inventions and tales of adventure, neither can know the significance of the indecipherable manuscript that the gypsy passes into their hands. The tribulations of the Buendia household push memories of the manuscript aside. Few remember its existence and one will discover the message that it holds.

Fermina rebuffed Florentino Arizo and married Juvenal. Florentino has loved none but Fermina. Having sworn 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?

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 Buendia can fathom its mysteries and reveal its shrouded destiny.

Florentino Ariza has never forgotten his first love. He has waited nearly a lifetime in silence since his beloved Fermina married another man. But now her husband is dead. Finally Florentino has another chance to declare his eternal passion and win her back. Will love that has survived half a century remain unrequited?

Sierva Maria appears completely unscathed after being bitten by a rabid dog. But as rumours of the plague spread, everyone puts her survival down to a demonic possession. Only the young priest charged with exorcising the evil spirit recognizes the girl's sanity, but can he convince the town that it's not her that needs healing?

When newly-wed Angela Vicario and Bayardo San Roman are left to their wedding night, Bayardo discovers that his new wife is no virgin. Disgusted, he returns Angela to her family home that very night, where her humiliated mother beats her savagely and her two brothers demand to know her violator, whom she names as Santiago Nasar.

Sweeping through crumbling towns, travelling fairs and windswept ports, this collection introduces a host of characters and communities in tales of everyday life teeming with magical oddities: smugglers, bagpipers, the President and Pope at the funeral of Macondo's revered matriarch.

Presents the story of Simon Bolivar who swept the Spanish back to Europe, liberating South America with his youthful vitality. But lonely, embittered and sickly at the age of forty-six, his power has dwindled. This book tells how he clings to the man he used to be, despite the assassination attempts, jeering and humiliation he encounters.

Discusses about the ageing prostitute preparing for death by teaching her dog to weep at her grave, the panicked husband scared for the life of his injured wife, and the old man who allows his mind to wander on a long-haul flight from Paris.

General Simon Bolivar, 'the Liberator' of five South American countries, takes a last melancholy journey down the Magdalena River, revisiting cities along its shores, and reliving the triumphs, passions and betrayals of his life. Infinitely charming, prodigiously successful in love, war and politics, he still dances with such enthusiasm and skill that those watching cannot believe he is ill. ...

As the citizens of a 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 self-styled General of the Universe. This title traces the demands of a man whose egocentric mask the loneliness of isolation.

Presents the story of a Colonel and his ailing wife who fight a constant battle against poverty and monotony, scraping together the dregs of their savings for the food and medicine that keeps them alive.

Contemplates the misfortunes of old age, and celebrates the joys of being in love. This work tells of an unnamed second-rate reporter who on the eve of his ninetieth birthday decides to give himself 'a night of mad love with a virgin adolescent'.

He has never married, never loved and never gone to bed with a woman he didn't pay. But on finding a girl naked and asleep on the brothel owner's bed, a passion is ignited in his heart and he feels the urgent pangs of love. Each night, 'Delgadina' sleeps whilst he watches her quietly. His love for her deepens.

'Cesar Montero was dreaming about elephants. He'd seen them at the movies on Sunday...' Only moments later, Cesar is led away by police as they clear the crowds away from the man he has just killed.

The Man and the Myth. A unique and intensely personal homage to the legendary Omar Torrijos. Essay by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

Living in the devastated and soulless wasteland of Macondo is one last honourable man, the Colonel, who is determined to fulfil a longstanding promise, no matter how unpalatable it may be. With the death of the detested Doctor, he must provide an honourable burial - and incur the wrath of the rest of Macondo, who would rather see the Doctor rot.

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. The author retells the survivor's tale of endurance, from his loneliness and thirst to his determination to survive.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez was twenty-three, emerging as a young man and experimenting as a writer, when his mother asked him to come with her, back to the village of Aracataca, back to his grandparents' house and the memories of his Colombian childhood. This memoir describes the atmosphere and influences that shaped his imagination.