In the following essay, Conniff explores the use of magic realism in One Hundred Years of Solitude to describe and interpret many of the dark events in Latin-American history.

In the following essay, Conniff views Gabriel García Marquez s One Hundred Years of Solitude as a critique of scientific progress.

When the first edition of One Hundred Years of Solitude was published …, there was an immediate storm of critical attention and acclaim which has not yet subsided…. One Hundred Years of Solitude brings to the novel form a deep exploration of aspects of solitude, from the loneliness of power to sexual anguish, drawing heavily on the earlier ideas which had been suggested by Paz and Borges. García Márquez's novel takes place in Macondo, a mythical town in Colombia, and the o...

It has been written, occasionally, that Gabriel García Márquez's writing owes much to surrealism. It might, but the thing is that it is not the writing that is surrealist, it is his subjects. Latin America is surrealist, García Márquez is its chronicler. The Colombian writer could be described more appropriately, and especially since publication of One hundred years of solitude and Autumn of the patriarch, as one of the Latin Caribbean's few real historians…....