The Autumn of the Patriarch - Softcover

Marquez, Gabriel Garcia

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0241968631 ISBN 13: 9780241968635

Publisher: Penguin, 2014

Synopsis

Gabriel García Márquez, winner of the 1982 Nobel Prize for Literature and author of One Hundred Years of Solitude, explores the loneliness of power in Autumn of the Patriarch.

'Over the weekend the vultures got into the presidential palace by pecking through the screens on the balcony windows and the flapping of their wings stirred up the stagnant time inside'

As the citizens of an unnamed Caribbean nation creep through dusty corridors in search of their tyrannical leader, they cannot comprehend that the frail and withered man lying dead on the floor can be the self-styled General of the Universe. Their arrogant, manically violent leader, known for serving up traitors to dinner guests and drowning young children at sea, can surely not die the humiliating death of a mere mortal?

Tracing the demands of a man whose egocentric excesses mask the loneliness of isolation and whose lies have become so ingrained that they are indistinguishable from truth, Márquez has created a fantastical portrait of despotism that rings with an air of reality.

'Delights with its quirky humanity and black humour and impresses by its total originality' Vogue

'Captures perfectly the moral squalor and political paralysis that enshrouds a society awaiting the death of a long-term dictator' Guardian

'Márquez writes in this lyrical, magical language that no-one else can do' Salman Rushdie

About this title

Review:

It asks to be read more than twice, and the rewards are dazzling (Observer)

Delights with its quirky humanity and black humour and impresses by its total originality (Vogue)

About the Author:

Gabriel Garcia Marquez was born in Aracataca, Colombia, in 1927. He studied at the National University of Colombia in Bogotá, and later worked as a reporter for the Colombian newspaper El Espectador and as a foreign correspondent in Rome, Paris, Barcelona, Caracas and New York. He is the author of several novels and collections of stories, including Eyes of a Blue Dog (1947), Leaf Storm (1955), No One Writesto the Colonel (1958), In Evil Hour (1962), Big Mama's Funeral (1962), One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967), Innocent Erendira and Other Stories (1972), The Autumn of the Patriarch (1975), Chronicle of a Death Foretold (1981), Love in the Time of Cholera (1985), The General in His Labyrinth (1989), Strange Pilgrims (1992), Of Love and Other Demons (1994) and Memories of My Melancholy Whores (2005). Many of his books arepublished by Penguin. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982. Gabriel Garcia Marquez died in 2014.

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0241968631
• ISBN 13: 9780241968635
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 240