Cien Anos de Soledad. [One Hundred Years of Solitude].

MARQUEZ, Gabriel Garcia.

Item Number: 138241

Buenos Aires: Editorial Sudamericana, 1967.

First edition of the author’s masterpiece which is recognized as one of the most significant works in the Spanish literary canon. Octavo, original illustrated wrappers. From the library of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s close friend Sergio Munoz Bata with his ownership name and embossed library stamp. The recipient, Sergio Muñoz Bata and his wife Juana, were close friends of Marquez. They met in 1964 in Mexico City in the home of author Carlos Fuentes, who often hosted a literary open house or “salon” on Sundays. At the time, Marquez was largely unknown to the literary world and still a “starving artist.” Even after his fame, however, Marquez remained very down-to-earth, and the men stayed close friends for over 50 years. When Muñoz Bata moved to Los Angeles in the late 1970’s, they continued to get together regularly with their wives after Marquez purchased a home there.  Sergio Muñoz Bata writes a weekly syndicated column published in 18 newspapers published in 11 countries. He is also both a former Los Angeles Times editorial board member and Executive Editor of La Opinión. In good condition with a tape repair to the spine and presentation inscription on the front free endpaper. Housed in a custom half morocco clamshell box. An exceptional association linking two writers and friends at the advent of their writings.

"One Hundred Years of Solitude chronicles the life of Macondo, a fictional town based in part of Garcia Marquez's hometown of Aracataca, Colombia, and seven generations of the founding family, the Buendias. He creates a complex world with characters and events that display the full range of human experience. For the reader, the pleasure of the novel derives from its fast-paced narrative, humor, vivid characters, and fantasy elements. In this 'magic realism', the author combines imaginative flights of fancy with social realism to give us images of levitating priests, flying carpets, a four-year-long rainstorm, and a young woman ascending to heaven while folding sheets" (NYPL Books of the Century 31). At the conclusion of the 1970's this book was voted by the editors of The New York Times Book Review to be not only the best book published in the last ten years but the book most likely to still be read one hundred years from then.