Happy Fourth of July! I hope everyone is having a fun (and cool) holiday. This week, I am featuring a book from one of my favorite authors, Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Colombian-born Garcia Marquez won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982 for his novels and short stories. By then, one of his most famous works, One Hundred Years of Solitude, was extremely popular and had really put a spotlight on literature from Latin America.
In 1988, he published Love in the Time of Cholera. The narrative follows the ill-fated love of Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza who were at one time young sweethearts, but were forced apart by her family and social expectations. After their parting, Florentino Ariza's love for her remains, and goes out of his way to catch glimpses of Fermina throughout their entire lives. Garcia Marquez said that the intensity of the character's early love affair was based upon his parent's story. However, his parents eventually married and according to the author "...as soon as they were married, they were no longer interesting as literary figures."
Garcia Marquez's work could be seen as a heart wrenching love story that spans many decades, featuring many idyllic and romantic details like river boats and 60 page love letters. However, Love in the Time of Cholera is also a warning for the possible selfish nature of all consuming love and the destruction it can cause.
So if you're in the mood for a truly epic love story, (I'm sorry, I'm a sap) check out the book from one of our many libraries!
