Leaf Storm (1955) Widely celebrated as the first appearance of Macondo, the fictitious village later made

famous in One Hundred Years of Solitude,

The narrative of Leaf Storm shifts between the perspectives of three generations of one family as the three
characters (father, daughter and grandson respectively) find themselves in a spiritual limbo after the death of a
man passionately hated by the entire village yet inextricably linked to the patriarch of the family.

Plot introduction
The novella takes place in Macondo, the fictional town that would be the future site of more Márquez stories. At
this point and time in the little town of Macondo the banana boat company has landed and with it many new
people to work. The newcomers are referred to as “la hojarasca”, hence the title of the book. However, the
narrative surrounds a colonel, his daughter Isabel, his grandson and the burial of a doctor scorned by the
village. The story takes place at the wake of the doctor.

Plot summary
The Father, an aging, half blind man who carries the title of colonel within the village, has made a promise to
bury the recently deceased former doctor in spite of the consensus within Macondo that he should be left to rot
within the corner house where he had lived in complete social isolation for the past decade. The daughter,
Isabel, is obliged to accompany her father out of respect for traditional values while knowing she and her son
will be doomed to face the wrath of her neighbors in Macondo. The narrative of the grandson, on the other
hand, is more preoccupied with the mystery and wonder of death.
As with many of his stories, such as Love in the Time of Cholera and Chronicle of a Death Foretold, García
Márquez introduces a dramatic scene to begin his narrative and then moves backward, rehashing the past that
will lead up to the ultimate conclusion. It is discovered within the narrative that the center of all the conflict (the
deceased) is a doctor who came to Macondo with a mysterious past and no clear name. The man's only
saving grace is a letter of recommendation from the Colonel Aureliano Buendia, one of the main characters of
the later One Hundred Years of Solitude. It is this letter that leads the stranger to the family that serves
collectively as narrator to the drama that unfolds.

Narrative Techniques

In medias res
Marquez starts his novella in medias res, that is, “in the middle of things”. This is shown through the opening
paragraph that starts off with the description of the boat company landing in Macondo and then immediately
goes to the boy’s point of view at the doctor’s wake.

Multiple narrators
The story changes narrators at many points with an omniscient narrator always being present. It changes from
the boy to his mother to his grandfather the colonel. Each perspective is different and allows the reader to see
inside the mind of whoever is speaking.

Stream of consciousness
The story is told in a stream of consciousness because the boy, Isabel, and the colonel tell the reader a trail of
thoughts as they appear in their mind. These internal monologues provide the information that puts the pieces
of the story together as the story starts off at the doctor’s death and not his life. Because the stream of
consciousness is used, it enables the characters to jump back and forth in time without ever leaving their
present moment, which is at the wake of the doctor. Also due to this narrative technique the illusion is given
that these characters are talking out aloud to each other when in fact very little interaction actually takes place
between them.
Themes

Death
As the novella starts out at the wake of the doctor, death is an apparent theme that surrounds the narrative.
More specifically, however, the type of death exhibited in this book is self-inflicted death as the doctor
committed suicide after locking himself away for ten years in his home.

Solitude
Solitude is another important theme that not only manifests itself through the doctor’s life but through the
colonel, Isabel, and the boy. As a result of the doctor’s isolation he commits suicide but as a result of that
suicide the family risks isolation with his burial. Because the doctor was an outcast from Macondo and scorned
by the people of Macondo there is more at stake than just the proper treatment of a corpse. This is reflected in
Isabel’s thoughts as she contemplates how the townspeople will receive them after they bury the doctor.

War
It is not as apparent as solitude or death but nonetheless involved in the story. It is suggested in the novella
that at this time in Macondo’s history a civil war has ended. This can be inferred by the reason that
townspeople hate the doctor. He denied treatment to wounded soldiers that had come to his house to seek aid.
The colonel himself is a reminder of war culture as he maintains high rank in Macondo and is well respected by
the people although he is going against their will by burying the doctor. Also, reflecting war culture is the
colonel’s relationship to the doctor. He is loyal to the doctor even after his death because of the doctor's ties to
another colonel he knows.
The deceased
After giving up on the practice of medicine and living at the expense of the family for an inordinate amount of
time, the reclusive doctor moves two houses down with Meme, the indigenous house maid that had been living
with the narrative family at the time. While his reclusive demeanour and lustful attention to the female form do
not make him popular with the locals, the former doctor's ultimate banishment only occurs when nearly a
dozen men, wounded from one of the country's many civil wars, are brought to his door in search of medical
attention. The doctor, having given up the practice of medicine, refuses to save them as he once refused to
help an ailing Meme while they had been living with the family of narrators.
Traces of magical realism
In addition to the themes of cyclicality and inversion that are bedrocks to the narrative fluidity of One Hundred
Years of Solitude; Leaf Storm also demonstrates several other techniques identified with Magical Realism such
as manipulation of time and the use of multiple perspectives.

No One Writes to the Colonel is a novella.It also gives its name to a short story collection.
The novel, written between 1956 and 1957 while living in Paris in the Hotel des Trois Collegesand first
published in 1961,] is the story of an impoverished, retired colonel, a veteran of the Thousand Days' War, who
still hopes to receive the pension he was promised some fifteen years earlier.
The colonel lives with his asthmatic wife in a small village under martial law. The action opens with the colonel
preparing to go to the funeral of a town musician whose death is notable because he was the first to die from
natural causes in many years. The novel is set during the years of "La Violencia" in Colombia, when martial
lw and censorship prevail.
Unlike many other García Márquez works, the novel mostly does not fall within the magic realism genre, as it
includes only one magical event.
The main characters of the novel are not named, adding to the feeling of insignificance of an individual living in
Colombia. The colonel and his wife, who have lost their son to political repression, are struggling with poverty
and financial instability.
The corruption of the local and national officials is evident and this is a topic which García Márquez explores
throughout the novel, by using references to censorship and the impact of government on society.
The colonel desperately tries to sell their inheritance from their only son who is now dead and eventually the
only reminder of his existence is a rooster that the colonel trains to take part in a cockfight.
In Evil Hour (1962)
Written while García Márquez lived in Paris, the story was originally entitled (This Town of Shit or This Shitty
Town).

Plot
In Evil Hour takes place in a nameless Colombian village. Someone has been placing
satirical pasquinades about the town, outlining the locals' shameful secrets. Some dismiss these as common
gossip. However, when a man kills his wife's supposed lover after reading of her infidelity, the mayor decides
that action is called for. He declares martial law and sends soldiers (who are actually armed thugs) to patrol the
streets. He also uses the 'state of unrest' as an excuse to crack down on his political enemies.
The General in His Labyrinth (1989) dictator novel by Colombian writer and Nobel laureate Gabriel García
Márquez. It is a fictionalized account of the last seven months of Simón Bolívar, liberator and leader of Gran
Colombia. The book traces Bolívar's final journey from Bogotá to the Caribbean coastline of Colombia in his
attempt to leave South America for exile in Europe. Breaking with the traditional heroic portrayal of Bolívar El
Libertador, García Márquez depicts a pathetic protagonist, a prematurely aged man who is physically ill and
mentally exhausted.[1] The story explores the labyrinth of Bolívar's life through the narrative of his memories, in
which "despair, sickness, and death inevitably win out over love, health, and life".

Of Love and Other Demons (1994)

In the prologue, García Márquez claims the novel is the fictional representation of a legend the author was told
by his grandmother as a child: of a 12-year-old girl who contracts rabies but was believed to be a 'miracle-
worker', with long flowing copper hair that continues to grow after death
Sierva Maria de Todos Los Angeles The twelve-year-old daughter of the Marquis and his wife Bernarda.
Her hair has never been cut, and was promised to the saints when she was born with the umbilical cord around
her neck. She was raised by the slaves, fluent in multiple African languages, and familiar with the customs. In
the beginning of the book she is bit by a rabid dog. Even though she shows no signs of rabies, she is subject to
multiple "healing" methods, which can be considered torture. She is sent to the convent of Santa Clara to
receive an exorcism, which many people have died from.
She receives attention from a priest, Father Cayetano, who is kind to her and initially believes she doesn't
need to be exorcised. Father Cayetano falls in love with Sierva Maria and declares her his love; he soon
begins visiting Sierva in her cell in secret, climbing up from the sewer (that in future is fixed). They eat, sleep,
and recite poetry together, even though it doesn't appear that they are sexually involved.
Later Father Cayetano is sent away to a leper hospital where he hopes to get the disease but never does.
Sierva Maria in the meantime is last summoned to be exorcised and she eventually dies 'of love' wondering
where Father Cayetano is and after having her hair cut. After her death her hair magically grows back on her
skull.

News of a Kidnapping (1996) García Márquez published this journalistic chronicle of drug-related
kidnappings in his native Colombia.

Living to Tell the Tale (2002), García Márquez wrote this memoir which focuses on his first 30 years.
Memories of My Melancholy Whores (2004), a novel about a lonely man who finally discovers the meaning
of love when he hires a virginal prostitute to celebrate his 90th birthday.

An old journalist, who has just celebrated his 90th birthday, seeks sex with a young prostitute, who is selling
her virginity to help her family. Instead of sex, he discovers love for the first time in his life.

Leaf Storm and other stories – includes stories like “The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World”, “A
Very Old Man with Enormous Wings”, “Blacaman the Good, Vendor of Miracles”, “The Last Voyage of the
Ghost Ship”, “The Monologue of Isabel Watching It Rain in Macondo”, and “Nabo”.

A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings" and subtitled "A Tale for Children" is a short story.The short story
involves a very old man with enormous wings who appears in a families' backyard on a stormy night. What
follows are the reactions of the family, a town, and outside visitors.[2]This story falls within the genre of magic
realism.

Plot summary
The story begins after three days of rain, which make crabs come out everywhere. Pelayo and Elisenda's child
is sick, supposedly because of the crabs' stench. They find an old sickly man with enormous wings in their
backyard lying face-down. When the couple attempts to communicate with the old man, his incomprehensible
language leads the couple to believe he is a castaway. A neighbor woman, who knows many things about life
and death, tells the couple he is an angel. The next day everyone knows there is a "flesh and blood angel" in
their yard. Pelayo decides to lock the angel in a chicken coop overnight and then send him on a raft to his fate.
Early the next morning the local people gather in front of the chicken coop, to harass the angel. Father
Gonzaga arrives at 7, alarmed by the strange news and to see whether the old man really is an angel or not.
Ultimately, Father Gonzaga finds many reasons why the man cannot be an angel, such as the fact that the old
man cannot understand Latin, and he shows many mortal characteristics. Elisenda, tired of cleaning up the
visitors' messes, decides to charge an entrance fee of 5 cents to see the angel, which eventually allows them
to amass a small fortune.
The crowd soon loses interest in the angel, because another spectacular person becomes famous in the
village. The new attraction is a woman who disobeyed her parents when she was young and has since been
transformed into a tarantula. In order for her to continue telling her story, the people of the town toss meatballs
into her mouth, which was "her only means of nourishment." Though the people of the town no longer visit the
angel, the family has saved up enough money to build a mansion with balconies and gardens and nets.
Still in captivity, the angel's health declines and seems on the verge of death. When his last winter in the
chicken coop is over he suddenly becomes healthier and grows a few new feathers. At first, he roams around
the house, but Elisenda keeps shooing him out of the rooms with a broom. One day he leaves the house and
flies away.Elisenda watches him do this through the kitchen window as she continues chopping onions.

Characters

 Pelayo: Pelayo is the father of the child and Elisenda's husband. He discovers the Old Man in his
backyard.

 Elisenda: Elisenda is the mother of the child and Pelayo's wife. Elisenda is the one who comes up with the
idea of charging people to see the Old Man.
 The Old Man: The Old Man is "Dreaming" in the story. He first appears in the backyard in the mud. The
family is first hesitant about what he is, so they make him live in the chicken coop. He is very dirty and he
speaks an incomprehensible language that no one understands. When the crowds first start to come
around, he is absentminded and patient about what's going on; as the crowds continue to come from all
over the world to see him, he becomes a celebrity. Later, the crowds burn him with a branding iron and he
flaps his wings in pain. In the end, he grows back all of his feathers and flies away. The old man is
described many times throughout the story as having "antiquarian" eyes.
 Father Gonzaga: Father Gonzaga is the town priest and the authority figure of the town. Father Gonzaga
is described as having been "a robust woodcutter" before becoming a priest. Father Gonzaga suspects the
old man is an imposter because he doesn't know Latin, the language of God. He then contacts the Church
and awaits verdict from higher authority.
 The Neighbour: The Neighbour is said to know everything about life and death. She thinks that the Old
Man is an angel who has fallen from the sky and come for Pelayo's son. While her advice for clubbing the
Old Man is not taken, she still attempts to help her neighbors Pelayo and Elisenda.
 Spider Woman: The Spider Woman essentially comes and takes the Old Man's fame. She is a
troublemaker who got kicked out of her parents' home for disobeying. After disobeying her parents, she
was transformed into a tarantula with the head of a woman. The people forget about the Old Man and
focus their interest on her. In contrast to the Old Man, who does not talk and move much, she is always
open to tell about her story, so the villagers abandon the Old Man when she comes. The Spider Woman is
attractive to the visitors because she is a relatable character who has been against some struggle as
opposed to the seemingly cold and alien Old Man.
 The Child: The child is Pelayo and Elisenda's newborn baby, who is ill when the story opens. The
Neighbor tries to tell the family that the Old Man came to take the baby. The Old Man and the child are
somewhat connected. They are ill at the same time and play together.

The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World

One Wednesday morning, children in a small fishing village of "about twenty-odd wooden houses" find a body
on the beach that is covered with "flotsam" and sea debris. The children play by burying him in the sand until
the adults discover the corpse and decide that it must be given a small funeral and thrown off the cliff on which
their village rests. This is done because there is so little land in the village that they cannot have traditional
burials. In order to do so, however, they must prepare him for burial at sea and look in neighboring villages for
any surviving relatives. The men carry the body up to the village so that the women can prepare him for the
funeral while they go to neighboring villages to ask if anyone can identify the drowned man.
The man is too tall to fit easily into any house and, upon removing the seaweed and mud, the women observe
his handsome face. The women of the village become attached to him and dream of the wonderful man he
must have been. Eventually, an old woman declares that his name must have been Esteban, and after a short
period of resistance from some of the younger women, they all agree. After dreaming of how powerful Esteban
must have been they decide to make him clothes because no one owns anything large enough to fit him. The
pants they make are too small and the buttons on the shirt burst. The women then think about how he must
have had to stoop to enter doorways and how he must have felt uncomfortable in the small homes. The
women feel pity and sympathy for the man, who they silently compare to their own husbands, and they begin
to weep for him. They then cover Esteban's face with a handkerchief.
The men are unable to find any relatives of the drowned man and they return home, where the village
continues the funeral preparation as a group. The women, now attached to Esteban, place "altar decorations"
on him, including a compass, holy water, and nails. The men grow annoyed and chide their wives for taking
such elaborate measures for "a stranger" . Esteban's face is then revealed to the men and they too are awed
by the humble character they see in his face. Women go to get flowers in neighboring villages, since none
grow in their own, and women from those villages come back to see Esteban. This continues until the village
grows so crowded that it is "hard to walk about." They do not want Esteban buried as an "orphan" so a mother
and father are chosen for him "from among the best people," as well as uncles, aunts, and cousins, until
everyone is related to Esteban. Instead of burying him with an anchor they let him go without one so that he
can return one day. This is when the village realizes how desolate and small their town appears.
After Esteban is buried at sea, the village resolves to make their doors wider for Esteban's memory, to find
springs like he would have, to paint their houses bright colors, and to plant flowers. The village imagines that
one day a passing cruise ship will smell the flowers and the captain will point to their village and tell his
passengers that it was Esteban's home.