Is Maconda — from One Hundred Years of Solitude — a real place?
Maconda is a fictional Colombian town that is the setting of One Hundred Years of Solitude and several other novels and short stories written by Gabriel José García Márquez. Though García Márquez had been writing nearly all his life, he was 38 when he finally found his voice — and that was the voice of his grandmother. Until he was eight years old, García Márquez was raised by his maternal grandparents. Both were consummate storytellers, but he was most intrigued by his grandmother’s stories of superstitions and ghosts. He says she spoke with a naturalness that showed that she believed the stories. García Márquez realized that he had to tell his stories in the same way. And so One Hundred Years of Solitude was written. In 1982, García Márquez received the Nobel Prize for Literature. Happy birthday to Gabriel García Márquez, who turns 82 today.
