Probably García MárquezÂ's finest and most famous work, One Hun-dred Years of Solitude tells the story of the rise and fall, birth and death of the mythical town of Macondo through the history of the Buendía family. Inventive, amusing, magnetic, sad, alive with unforgettable men and women, and with a truth and understanding that strike the soul, One Hundred Years of Solitude is a masterpiece of the art of fiction.

Gabriel García Márquez was born in 1928 in the town of Araca-taca, Colombia. Latin AmericaÂ's preeminent man of letters, he is considered by many to be one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century. He began his writing career as a journalist and is the author of numerous works of fiction and nonfiction, including Love in the Time of Cholera, The Autumn ofthe Patriarch, and Collected Stories. His most recent work is a memoir, Living to Tell the Tale. García Már-quez was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982.