Readers who enjoy this story may wish to explore Garcia Marquez's other works. Big Mama's Funeral (1962) and The Incredible and Sad Story of Innocent Erendira and Her Heartless Grandmother (1972) are collections of short stories, many of which also embody principles of magic realism. The novel One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967) depicts the marvelous village of Macondo through a complex history that spans three generations of the town's leading family. Here, as in Love in the Time of Cholera (written in 1985, and set in an unnamed town), Garcia Marquez creates a dreamlike, many-layered landscape, realized in far more detail than is possible for the village in this brief tale. To many critics, One Hundred Years of Solitude still represents the highest achievement of magic realism.

Labyrinths (1962) by Jorge Luis Borges is a collection of short fictions, essays, and "parables" that presents...