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.
This magical realist novel tells the history of the Buendias family, the founders of Macondo, a remote South American settlement. In the world of the novel there is a Spanish galleon beached in the jungle, a flying carpet, and an iguana in a woman's womb. 'His masterpiece and one of the undeniable classics of the century.' The Times 'One of a glittering constellation of contemporary Latin American novelists ... He is the author of a classic on the grandest scale ... the most obvious comparison is with Homer's Odyssey ... Garcia Marquez is a spellbinder' Spectator