Listen&Learn: One Hundred Years of Solitude

Learn about the famous story of seven generations.

Pre-listening vocabulary

• generation: a group of people who belong to the same age group in a family
• isolated: away from other people
• mystical: magical or supernatural
• magical realism: a genre of fiction that uses elements of fantasy in a realistic setting
• allegory: a story that has a different meaning underneath its literal meaning
• colonialism: the process where a foreign country occupies and controls an area and its people

Listening activity

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:19 — 1.2MB)

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Gapfill exercise

One Hundred Years of Solitude is a 1967 by Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez. It was originally published in Spanish, and first into English in 1970. It follows seven generations of a family called the Buendías, who live in an isolated town called Macondo. The novel has a non-linear structure, telling the , often mystical stories of the Buendías out of order. It is one of the most famous works of magical realism in literature. It has been interpreted as an allegory for the of Colombia, documenting the effects of colonialism and civil wars over a . One Hundred Years of Solitude has won many international prizes, including literary awards in Italy and France. Marquez himself won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1982.

Comprehension questions

See answers below

1. In 1967, One Hundred Years of Solitude was published in
   a. Spanish
   b. Italian
   c. French
   
2. The story can be described as
   a. science fiction
   b. fantasy
   c. magical realism
   
3. In 1982,
   a. the book was first translated
   b. the book began to sell extremely well
   c. Márquez won the Nobel Prize in Literature

Discussion/essay questions

1. What can fiction teach us about history? Why might someone choose to tell a story about the past?

Transcript

One Hundred Years of Solitude is a 1967 novel by Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez. It was originally published in Spanish, and first translated into English in 1970. It follows seven generations of a family called the Buendías, who live in an isolated town called Macondo. The novel has a non-linear structure, telling the strange, often mystical stories of the Buendías out of order. It is one of the most famous works of magical realism in literature. It has been interpreted as an allegory for the history of Colombia, documenting the effects of colonialism and civil wars over a century. One Hundred Years of Solitude has won many international prizes, including literary awards in Italy and France. Márquez himself won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1982.

Answers to comprehension questions

1a 2c 3c