One Hundred Years of Solitude has been on my TBR for a minute, and boy was it worth the wait! This was one of the best books I have ever read. The storytelling of Gabriel García Márquez (often affectionately known as Gabo) is unsurpassed by any writer I have read thus far. I was enthralled from start to finish by his unhurried, intense and vivid prose infused with magical realism (for which he is world renowned). I could barely put this book down as I was reading it, especially as I neared the halfway point. The complexity of the characters, sheer imagination and creativity in the 100 yearlong saga of the Buendía family in Macondo is beyond impressive.
What perhaps struck me most profoundly while reading One Hundred Years of Solitude was how closely linked Colombian culture (on the Caribbean coast at least) is to West Indian/Caribbean culture. The superstitions and beliefs, the flora and fauna, as well as cuisine are much more similar than I had ever realized. This for me makes Gabo not only a Latin American writer, but also a Caribbean scribe. Yet despite this, surprisingly, in the English-speaking Caribbean (where I was born and raised), his books are not widely known nor read. Perhaps it is due to the language barrier. Somehow the Spanish speaking Caribbean (which includes the entire Caribbean Basin region, stretching from Mexico in the north down to Venezuela in the south), is unfortunately linguistically decoupled from the English (and French-) speaking Caribbean.
It goes without saying that I would highly recommend One Hundred Years of Solitude to anyone! I would especially encourage my fellow West Indians to read this one since I feel strongly that it is part of our heritage, of which we should be immensely proud.
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