One Hundred Years of Solitude

This novel follows several generations of the Buendía family in Macondo, a town founded in the Colombian jungle by the family's patriarch. Over a century, Macondo grows from an isolated village into a place touched by war, foreign business and political upheaval. The family members are marked by strong passions, obsessions and repeated names and habits, and each seems to carry a share of the solitude of the title. Marvels such as flying carpets and endless rain are told as plain fact. The book blends family chronicle with the history of Latin America, and it is widely considered one of the great novels of the twentieth century.