Collected novellas

by Gabriel García Márquez

Leaf storm --
No one writes to the colonel --
Chronicle of a death foretold.

Genres: Fiction, Short Stories, Magical Realism, Classics, Literature, Literary Fiction, Spanish Literature

249 pages, Hardcover

First published December 1, 1990

About the author

Gabriel José de la Concordia Garcí­a Márquez was a Colombian novelist, short-story writer, screenwriter and journalist. Garcí­a Márquez, familiarly known as "Gabo" in his native country, was considered one of the most significant authors of the 20th century. In 1982, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

He studied at the University of 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 wrote many acclaimed non-fiction works and short stories, but is best-known for his novels, such as One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967) and Love in the Time of Cholera (1985). His works have achieved significant critical acclaim and widespread commercial success, most notably for popularizing a literary style labeled as magical realism, which uses magical elements and events in order to explain real experiences. Some of his works are set in a fictional village called Macondo, and most of them express the theme of solitude.

Having previously written shorter fiction and screenplays, García Márquez sequestered himself away in his Mexico City home for an extended period of time to complete his novel Cien años de soledad, or One Hundred Years of Solitude, published in 1967. The author drew international acclaim for the work, which ultimately sold tens of millions of copies worldwide. García Márquez is credited with helping introduce an array of readers to magical realism, a genre that combines more conventional storytelling forms with vivid, layers of fantasy.

Another one of his novels, El amor en los tiempos del cólera (1985), or Love in the Time of Cholera, drew a large global audience as well. The work was partially based on his parents' courtship and was adapted into a 2007 film starring Javier Bardem. García Márquez wrote seven novels during his life, with additional titles that include El general en su laberinto (1989), or The General in His Labyrinth, and Del amor y otros demonios (1994), or Of Love and Other Demons.

(Arabic: جابرييل جارسيا ماركيز) (Hebrew: גבריאל גארסיה מרקס) (Ukrainian: Ґабріель Ґарсія Маркес) (Belarussian: Габрыель Гарсія Маркес) (Russian: Габриэль Гарсия Маркес)

Reviews

[Martin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am reviewing the Collected Novellas, not the Collected Stories. Goodreads appears to have combined them into one thread, not knowing there's a difference.
I give "Leaf Storm" only four stars because the shifting narrators and their mild stream of consciousness makes the story a bit more difficult than it's worth. I've read reviews that are quite negative toward "Leaf Storm", but I found the prose excellent and the story quite interesting as we gradually learned the truth of what happened between the doctor and the maid, and for what exact reason the town holds him in contempt. Time has passed slowly, yet events from decades past are as fresh as the town's festering wound left by the departing banana company. I've been a part of funerals such as the doctor's, where I knew that regardless of what I did, how I looked or what my subjective truth was, the townspeople had their minds made up and any observation was used only to confirm their long-held beliefs.
"No One Writes to the Colonel" (five stars!) -- what a powerful story, alternately despairing and hopeful, at turns darkly comedic and tragic. Time is passing too slowly as the colonel and his wife wait to put their deceased son's rooster in a cockfight. Will they run out of food first? They have been abandoned by the government which the colonel fought for and he is holding himself to a code of honor which may kill them.
"Chronicle of a Death Foretold" is one of the best novellas I've ever read, a breathless 95 pages that held me in suspense even though it did exactly what it said it would do. Again, various characters are held back by fatigue, sloth or faulty thinking, while a few others are propelled forward by a code of honor they'd rather not uphold. Restrictive gender roles come into play, along with racial prejudice and an apathetic church.
I seem to read a Garcia Marquez book every ten years or so, maybe it's time to pick up my pace. A good friend gave me this book in 2002 and it took me this long to get around to it because my books were packed in boxes as I moved around. I think that she recognized certain characteristics in Garcia Marquez that were similar to how I told stories about my family, particularly deaths, funerals, resentment, and how the past is destructively alive when people hold certain mindsets.

[✧ k a t i e ✧ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Note: I only read Chronicle of a Death Foretold and not the other two stories in this edition.

This was a pleasant surprise for a required reading.

I was expecting a novel that was about trying to figure out who the murderer was, but that's not what the story about. Who is killed and who killed that person was revealed in the first chapter. What the story is actually about is why that person is killed and the connections to the murder with various people in the town and the town's reaction to that murder, both right after it happened and years after.

Out of the two short stories I had to read for my class this quarter ( Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead being the other), this was definitely my favorite.

[Daniel Chaikin · Rating 5 out of 5]

10. Collected Novellas by Gabriel García Márquez
translators Gregory Rabassa & J. S. Bernstein
published: 1990
format: 281 page paperback
acquired: December
read: Feb 5 - 11
rating: 4½

It's a pity I waited so long to review these, but these novellas are the work of a, using the word of my flight attendant, master. Not sure I can capture much now.

Leaf Storm (1955)
This is a story of transition. In Márquez's fictional Macondo the Banana growers move in giving the town a burst of activity and industry, then this all fades and the town slowly reverts back to its former insignificance. The story here is about a doctor who comes to town and stays with a family, and doesn't leave until he's nudged out, encouraged to move two houses down. Over the course of time this doctor runs a strong and then weakening practice, stops practicing, becomes reclusive and finally manages to accrue the hatred of most of the town. But the story, which switches narrators without warning, is largely about the family that originally boards him.

This story stands out for its various layers of complexity that I could pick up on a read through it. It's a very ambitious work and mostly works brilliantly

I was sitting across from the Indian woman, who spoke with an accent mixed with precision and vagueness, as if there was a lot of incredible legend in what she was recalling but also as if she was recalling it in good faith and even with the conviction that the passage of time had changed legend into reality that was remote but hard to forget.

No One Writes to the Colonel (1961)
A fully depressing story because it's hard not to like the colonel and his wife, as they starve waiting for a military pension to arrive that never will arrive.

Chronicle of a Death Foretold (1981)
Quite fun stuff about a murder that isn't a mystery. The narrator is part of the tale, but tells the tale as if he were a journalist writing an investigative essay, interviewing every key character and then trying to read between the lines. What comes out is psychologically meaningful and even touching, but does a lot of different stuff along the way.

[Rose]

only garcia marquez can make loneliness, longing, poverty and sorrow this romantic.

[Jaclyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought I’d like his shorter works more because I’ve only read his really long books, but alas, I did not. I really like the ending of all of his stories but I always just get so bored in the beginning and middle.

[Michael Joe Armijo · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book contains three short stories by Colombian born Nobel Prize winning author, Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Gabriel had said, “I feel that all my writing has been about experiences of the time I spent with my grandparents.”
This is clear after reading this book. I give the book 3-stars (out of 5) but who is to say I am right to gip it out of two extra stars. To each his own opinion. After all, the author has been referred to as a master storyteller who, as the New York Review of Books once said, “forces upon us at every page the wonder and extravagance of life.”

The three novellas in this book were rather depressing but he does paint a picture with his words, taking you to the small, dusty impoverished towns. Frankly, a lot of it was boring. I visited the UNESCO town of Zacatecas, Mexico back in August 2017 and the settings of his stories reminded me of this town. I actually love Zacatecas . It’s like going back in time and that’s exactly what these novellas succeed in doing. Anyway, I doubt I will be seeking out more writings from Garcia Marquez (but I may be willing to see the 2007 film, LOVE IN THE TIME OF CHOLERA which is based on his novel. I’d much rather re-read the classic A DEATH IN THE SANCHEZ FAMILY by Oscar Lewis.

It’s clear that I liked Novella 2 best (NO ONE WRITES TO THE COLONEL) as it seemed to have more profound words to dwell on and the dialogue was rather compelling.

Novella 1: LEAF STORM: This story centered on the funeral of a doctor who was loathed in town as he hid from others and refused to help people given his obvious medical expertise. Lines I found interesting:

“You’ll wallow in your bed like a pig in its sty.”

She planted a grapevine beside the branches and hung a clump of sabita and a loaf of bread by the street door to protect herself against evil thoughts.

When something moves you can tell that time has passed.

He had the dreamy and fatigued expression of a man who doesn’t know what his life will be from one minute to the next and hasn’t got the least interest in finding out.

I heard his voice, deep, convincing, gentle: “Count seven stars and you’ll dream about me.”

Father Angel doesn’t seem to have any other satisfaction except savoring the preserving indigestion of meatballs every day during his siesta.

Novella 2: NO ONE WRITES TO THE COLONEL: This story centered on a lowly couple trying to make ends meet as they hold hope from the rooster in their home. The husband kept hoping for a pension check in the mail that would never come. Lines I found interesting:

“It’s winter,” the woman replied, “Since it began raining I’ve been telling you to sleep with your socks on.”

He had been converted into a man with no other occupation than waiting for the mail every Friday.

“Humanity doesn’t progress without paying a price.”

“To the Europeans, South America is a man with a mustache, a guitar, and a gun,” the doctor said, laughing over his newspaper.

“That’s the way it is,” he said, “Human ingratitude knows no limits.”

“You haven’t the slightest sense for business,” she said. “When you go to sell something, you have to put on the same face as when you go to buy.”

Novella 3: CHRONICLE OF A DEATH FORETOLD: With quite a cast of characters this story eventually guided the reader into a murder by twin brothers who were out for revenge on the man who attacked their sister. Lines I found interesting:

“Any dream about birds means good health.”

“My mother taught me never to talk about money in front of other people.”

“When you sacrifice a steer you don’t dare look into its eyes.” One of them told me that he couldn’t eat the flesh of an animal he had butchered. Another said that he wouldn’t be capable of sacrificing a cow if he’d known it before, much less if he’d drunk its milk.

She’d always felt that only children are capable of everything.

They married among themselves, imported their wheat, raised lambs in their yards, and grew oregano and eggplants, and playing cards was their only driving passion.

She then discovered that hate and love are reciprocal passions.

The whole family slept until twelve o’clock…”that’s why Flora Miguel, who wasn’t that young anymore, was preserved like a rose.”

[Louise Hindal · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one feels difficult to rate and review, partly because it’s three different novellas and partly because I feel lots of different things about the novellas. Some of the many thoughts.

Leaf Storm: 3 stars?
Felt a bit like an underwater dream. Or a dream moving through a suffocatingly humid summer day. The shifting perspectives was occasionally confusing. But I also appreciated the multiple takes at times. GGM crafts some incredibly vivid moments. I was also quite confused at times either about what was going on or separately why characters were doing what they were doing. I was left without a clear memory/impression of the point.

No one write to the Colonel: 3.5? 3?
Again this had some vividly captured moments. The difficulty of life, impossible hope, shame. Again I was confused at times. A similar lack of resolve at the end. Easier to read than the first.

Chronicle of a death foretold: 4? 3.5?
This one was my favorite. It moved quickly and had a clear mystery story line. I was less confused, except for the part of the chapter about the bride-to-be writing letters. That a small town would get captured in a spiral of how-did-this-happen seems very real, despite the tragedy. I found it interesting that this one didn’t fully resolve. I had a hard time keeping track of all the characters, but perhaps that was a bit of a point, showing just how intertwined the townspeople’s lives were.

[Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

These three short novels from the early, middle, and late periods of Garcia Marquez's career remind me a little of the Beethoven string quartets. The first one, Leaf Storm, is least like the others, and has a wild, poetic quality. It's rich in atmosphere, but I found it a bit messy and difficult to read. His style and story-telling is simpler, incredibly lithe, and most powerful in No One Writes to the Colonel, an almost Godot-like story. The Colonel's dark sense of humor is a vein of gold that runs through this depiction of unrelenting injustice and poverty. It's Garcia Marquez's Op. 59, his middle period masterpiece. The last story-- Chronicle of a Death Foretold -- is slower, deliberate, and heavy. It's his Op. 133, an immense fugue in which the same theme is repeated, but the variations are shockingly beautiful, despite their gravity. There's something baroque about this story, like an elaborately worked iron gate that bars an old house as haunted as the 20th century. It's not for everyone, I know, but for me it's as scary as anything Lovecraft ever wrote.

[Matt Cortes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Leaf Storm: 3.5/5 - This story was quite weak. It was interesting but never truly captured my interest of the events leading up to the main conflict. The frequent character jumps made it confusing. I think the writing is well done, but it lacks engagement.

No one writes to the colonel: 4/5 - I enjoyed this. The exploration of hope, poverty and political corruption in Colombia was fascinating, and i liked the humour they wove into the colonel’s struggle. I think the ending is somewhat unsatisfying, I think that’s intentional. But, I feel it ultimately leads nowhere.

Chronicle of a death foretold: 5/5 - This is so good. It’s kind of a simple story. A recount of a death. There is nothing crazy going on, mind blowing or anything. It’s just about the events that lead up to a death, and the events after. Its so fascinating how author is able to investigate the story, getting everyone’s recollection of the events and than write it in a non linear narrative. it just makes it so compelling as we get the full story piece by piece.

[michal k-c · Rating 4 out of 5]

Leaf Storm is a weaker work, especially when put beside two all-timers like No One Writes to the Colonel and Chronicle of a Death Foretold. I need to make more time to read / re-read some Márquez, because I don't often, and when I do I'm reminded that he was capable of producing work more perfect than not.

[Andy · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars really. Pretty good.

The three novellas ranked:
1. No one writes to the colonel
2. Chronicles of a death foretold
3. Leaf storm

It’s a shame the collection includes leaf storm which kinda sucked.

But otherwise really great writing. Especially No one writes to the colonel, which swept me away. Such a clean, simple and beautifully sad story.

[Lexington Starr · Rating 4 out of 5]

Márquez is always a tasty read.
Leaf Storm was new to me. I give it 5 stars.
No One Writes to the Colonel was new as well. 4 stars.
Chronicle of a Death Foretold was a re-read. 4 stars.

[Grace Henderson · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5
No One Writes to the Colonel and Chronicle of A Death Foretold both amazingggggg

[Danielle Kim · Rating 3 out of 5]

the first novella went over my head. but i quite like the second and third.

[Caitlin Vaille · Rating 3 out of 5]

When you have an author who writes phrases like "fastened to life by the tiny roots of everyday things", it's easy to enjoy ANY story.

Leaf Storm: 4 stars
No One Writes to the Colonel: 3.5 stars
Chronicle of a Death Foretold: 3 stars

[Joe Sweeney]

Leaf Storm: 3.5🌟
No One Writes To The Colonel: 3.5🌟
Chronicle Of A Death Foretold: 3🌟

[Pia · Rating 4 out of 5]

The throb of tragedy is the overarching feeling of Collected Novellas, a book containing three novellas by Nobel Prize laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Motifs run through the collection: the humble town setting, the intimidating march of technological progress, the inescapable wills of fate, the compelling characters, and the somewhat formal stylization of dialogue. Gabriel Garcia Marquez is one of the most capable authors on delivering sheer Gravitas, and he excels in doing so even in 100-page doses.

Leaf Storm . It is best to read Leaf Storm without having encountered metatext about it or One Hundred Years of Solitude. It offers a lot as a story by itself.

Primarily, it displays technical proficiency in the way it maximizes the literary device of shifting points of view. Garcia Marquez utilizes it as the means for the story's emotional arc. The story is first introduced by a young child who paints the scene without commentary (except for his own boyish discomfort with boring activities). It is exposition with enough hook (the morbidity of a corpse) that doesn't spoil the depth. Then, it is passed over to the mother, who knew not much about the dead but a lot about the social implications of her family burying an outcast. She gives the story urgency and stakes as she lays down the conflict: the doctor against the town. Finally, there is the Grandfather, the doctor's only confidant. His section reveals the depth of friendship, made possible by the perfect storm of a honorable colonel and a doctor conferred by a military superior.

A prose highlight of Leaf Storm talks about the extent the town hates the doctor, shown through their reaction to his death:

I couldn't articulate how much shame and ridicule there would be in burying this man whom everyone had hoped to see turn to dust inside his lair. Because people hadn't just expected that, they'd prepared themselves for things to happen that way and they'd hoped from the bottom of their hearts, without remorse, and even with the anticipated satisfaction of someday smelling the pleasant odor of his decomposition floating through the town without anyone's feeling moved, alarmed, or scandalized, satisfied rather at seeing the longed-for hour come, wanting the situation to go on and on until the twirling smell of the dead man would satisfy even the most hidden resentments.
—Page 11, Leaf Storm

What I considered weakest about Leaf Storm is its emotional core: the relationship between the colonel and the doctor. Generally, the first novella has many points for emotional contact, and most of them are empathetic and affecting. But those are the supplementary emotions. I feel like a truly perfect story dedicates itself to fleshing out its core. If not by weight/amount, at least by thematic arrangement.

The colonel’s promise and the doctor’s life-saving service are the thrust for the story’s only action. This arrangement is hinted at throughout the story, then eventually revealed as a monumental commitment. Simultaneous to the mystery of the burial, the reader is incrementally told the doctor’s life. It was engaging as an intellectual exercise, the bits of personhood coming together like a puzzle being slowly solved. However, to me it doesn’t ever transform beyond that. He’s withdrawn, unhelpful, cruddy in both superficial and meaningful ways. Coming from the opposite direction, the enigmatic nature of the doctor isn’t alluring enough to be a Pandora’s box situation.

When the reveal is given, it’s like an edgepiece placed to complete a puzzle. It’s too logically simple to evoke the emotional catharsis of earned completion.

No One Writes to the Colonel. No One Writes to the Colonel is one of the most popular works by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and I can see why. It engages with concepts captivating to the humanistic and dramatic reader alike. We read about a dignified man’s faded valor as well as the collusions of the rich and the government. We read about parental grief’s complex manifestations as well as state repression under martial law. No One Writes to the Colonel captures the way that “the personal” is aggravated by “the political”. It’s a story situated in a specific time and place, a direct outcome of political circumstances. All these hefty concepts naturally, amazingly, sharply, intersect over a rooster.

The couple’s escalating desperation, the methodical revelation of the rooster’s connection to the dead son, and the colonel’s portrait of restraint galvanize, thereby escaping corniness and earning this exchange:

”You can’t eat hope,” the woman said.
“You can’t eat it, but it sustains you,” the colonel replied.
—Page 157, No One Writes to the Colonel

A Chronicle of a Death Foretold . My favorite one out of this collection. The story earns the label “Chronicle”, as the perfectly told novella leans into impressing drama upon the reader, making use of every character to its fullest thematic and plot extent, and employs various moods and paces. A Chronicle of a Death Foretold became, at one point or another, murder investigation, fight scene, unrequited romance, family legend. As it went through this wild course, it was engaging at every point.

They didn't hear the shouts of the whole town, frightened by its own crime
—Page 273, A Chronicle of a Death Foretold

The unique theme of A Chronicle of a Death Foretold is the question of people’s complicity in violence when it is considered as equal in weight to the slighted social convention it is reacting towards. The narrative flip-flops between the murder as Fate’s machinations and the collective decision of several people. On one hand, Angela Vicario’s virginity is a social construct, and the townspeople literally just stood by to watch Santiago Nasar murdered in its honor. On the other hand, the amount of coincidences that foiled the attempts of those who did try to intervene, and the amount of happenstances that ensured Pedro Vicario and Pablo Vicario’s knives landed true throw in just enough ambiguity for us, for the townspeople themselves, to question it.

It was really interesting to read sincere explorations about Fate, as contemporary books (at least, those I encounter) don’t attempt to engage with Fate. Or at least, not explicitly. Definitely not in a way that suggests an exploration in its grandiose scale.

One highlight for me was in the text exploring Fate, wherein Garcia Marquez ropes in representatives of the state. Specifically, the mayor (the government) and the priest (the church). It works rhetorically as a commentary of the state’s incompetence in averting crime. The mayor’s only reaction to men with explicitly murderous intent and two sharp knives was to take those two specific knives away. Meanwhile, the priest says that “my first thought was that it wasn’t any business of mine but something for the civil authorities.” It also works as a way to illustrate the magnitude to which Fate made certain of Santiago’s murder.

Another highlight for me was the entire storyline of Angela Vicario and Bayardo San Roman. It’s so starkly feudal, so drippingly romantic. The imagery that composed their love story are so cute and sappy: a man deciding that a woman will be his wife after laying his eyes on her, a demure lady setting impossible promises, a town-wide wedding party, a marriage ending in 5 hours, a rejected wife persisting with one-sided correspondence, a husband coming to her doorstep several years later with her unopened letters in hand. Normally, I would be staunchly against this whole thing on principle (and I have to say Bayardo rejecting his wife over her virginity is Really Fucked Up), but this entire thread placed within the context of the bloody murder of a cattle rancher and child molester was the reprieve that really balanced A Chronicle of a Death Foretold for me. I think for me, as far as this novella was concerned, one wouldn’t have worked without the other.


Final Thoughts
Usually, I get through 100-page books over two days. I finished Collected Novellas, a 300-page book, over the weekend because I couldn’t put it down. It’s really great to read a pitch-perfectly written book in order to feel revitalized about literature again, to recover some enthusiasm after being demoralized by disappointing work. Collected Novellas made me want to revisit One Hundred Years of Solitude, it gave me new hope for the potential of novellas and short story collections, and it made me think I’m more open to romance than I thought.

[Guillermo Galvan · Rating 3 out of 5]

The breakdown:

Leaf Storm was pretty good. The story centers a small cast of characters dealing with the shameful burial of a despised doctor. Marquez really captured the gossiping nature of Latinos. We really know how to shame people behind their backs. The perspective changes made the story somewhat disorienting, but if you just go with it, you'll enjoy what's there.

No One Writes to the Colonel is a story about dignity and hope dying in poverty. A husband and wife hang on to the memories of their murdered son and the anticipation of a pension check from the military. Again Marquez nails the Latino character of self-deluding patience, suffering quietly for something that will obviously never come. My only gripe was a ending that robbed me of any closure. It just ended. This should have been extended into a full novel, instead of driving off a cliff.

Chronicle of Death Foretold was a descriptive beating. Here Marquez does what he does worst: belaboring the setting, always explaining and everything happening at a snail's crawl. This had me tapping out before the halfway point.

Taken as a collection, this book is decent at best. The stories felt as if they were running starts to a One Hundred Years of Solitude. Each novella was well grounded with lots of cultural substance, but each time they ended on a weak note. I was hoping for something on the level of Love in the Time of Cholera. These novellas are worth reading after you've exhausted his stronger works.

[Julia · Rating 3 out of 5]

When I read a genius piece of work like One Hundred Years of Solitude, I always imagine that the ideas floated up to the author while he was in a sort of opium haze and he gathered them up with a jar and dipped a quill in the jar and wrote the story that way. That's why when I read this collection of shorts, I was kind of sad to see all of the inspiration that went into One Hundred Years of Solitude... the small town, the family dramas, society vs. the outsider, the pain that comes from following protocol - pride vs. survival, eh... well I could see where he got all of the material for his great opus is all - breaks the spell in a way.

I really enjoyed Collected Novellas - not as much as Visions of my Melancholy Whores though. As always, beautifully written, heartbreaking characterizations of repression.

It made me hopeful that a writer can start out as slightly better than mediocre with a sensitive, strong and colorful imagination, stir in life experience and with a little practice, can make One Hundred Years of Solitude. (Collected Novellas was the "slightly better than mediocre" part) But the good news is that mediocre for G.Marq is better than super super best of good for that Dan Brown fella.

[Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

García Márquez weaves his magic with a kind of serene power that effortlessly transports you to a desolate Caribbean village in Colombia, almost without you even noticing.

Chronicle of a Death Foretold, the third story in the collection, was by far my favorite. It’s a darkly witty small-town tale about the murder of Santiago Nasar, told through a journalistic lens. The mix of machismo, the cult of virginity, and the unraveling of fate is gripping. The romantic, almost dreamlike descriptions of the Caribbean setting hooked me from the start, adding an unforgettable charm to the story.

[Priya Singh · Rating 4 out of 5]

I could not have imagined a writer dare put so much sadness in one collection! It could only have been GGM.
This selection of novellas will not make you go bawl your eyes out but will clutch at and wrench your heart out. You'll not be able to escape that subtle pain which increases as each story continues.

'Leaf storm' had a very unique style of prose where the person whose presenting the dialogue and thoughts changes within the same chapter in continuation. It was difficult to figure out oh now its the daughter talking, oh so its the kid speaking now...but once you get used to it, its very interesting to see the flow of events from all 3 perspectives at the same time. The mind map it was building was spectacular. I hope I am able to find more of this writing style.

'No one writes to the colonel' as you can imagine from the title, is one of THE most heartbreaking stories ever. The worst part? Its very close to reality. I wish I could get addresses of all such ppl in the world and I'm sure I'll make it a project to write to them. Thinking about this on a serious note.

'...Death foretold' was the only one with at least one happy part to the saga; Angela falls in love and was able to meet Bayardo after 17yrs! Reinforces the belief of destiny and karma....when something is destined to happen, it'll happen and we'll loose all control over and sense of our actions.

All three had a sense of mystery to them which kept up a tolerable level of curiosity without giving a feeling that something was left open-ended. I also loved how the following story had at least one connecting character with the previous one so as to give a kind of continuity to the end and subsequent beginning.

[Lucie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having read 100 years of Solitude early this year, I was keen to read more by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and found this collection at the Last Bookstore in LA. The three stories all involve a death, however present them in different lights.

Leaf Storm: (3*)
The death of a hated but mysterious doctor in Maconda is told through three generations of a family, also featuring the change in a town after the banana trade comes and goes. It was difficult to track the change of narrative especially to begin with as the change seemed random. Untold secrets are revealed throughout but rarely shared with the other characters.

No One Writes to the Colonel: (4*)
The Colonel is living in poverty with his wife, struggling to feed themselves as well as a rooster that they inherited from their murdered son. Waiting for fifteen years for his war pension to arrive with no indication that his wait will ever end, the Colonel is delaying any proactive changes. This novella is a study in passiveness and survival. The elderly couple go through the motions to portray a dignified life, while they privately struggle to survive. Having sold everything of value in their home, the rooster is the embodiment of their hope in a future, keeping the rooster alive in the hopes that it'll win a cockfight in the future.

Chronicle of a Death Foretold (4*)
An investigation of a murder some years later by which the whole town was witness and knew of the crime in the hours before yet failed to prevent it. The most gruesome of the short stories by far with lots of intestines and stabbings featured. I felt this story conveyed the various points of view better than the Leaf Storm, and was therefore easier to follow.

[Will Mayo]

These then are 3 stories about death in Gabriel Garcia Marquez's fictional Latin American town of Macombo. The first, "Leaf Storm," involves the coming and going of a leaf storm that brings people, prosperity, amusements and all manner of past and future only to take it all away as it swirls about an old man's effort to get a hanged man, a despised man in the community, a proper burial. The second tale, "No One Writes To The Colonel," is an excellent tale likewise and involves an aged colonel, a veteran of his country's civil wars, who, in the face of hunger and impending death and all manner of troubles, continues to hold onto his dreams with his cockfighting rooster. Every sentence is a thing of beauty. While the last novella in this book, "The Chronicle Of A Death Foretold," involves the entire town's complicity of a death of a man, the seducer of a rich man's fiancé in an honor killing. Every sentence and every paragraph has the ticking of a clock and the hand of fate, as the hunted man, Santiago, goes obediently to his demise. I suggest that you read these 3 stories about death. They are well told and show each in their own way why Senor Marquez won the Nobel Prize For Literature. It is an honor richly deserved. Enjoy every word.

[minh · Rating 4 out of 5]

It feels blasphemous giving one of my favorite authors of all time this low of a rating—in all honesty, I wish I’d read the three novellas separately. Leaf Storm, the first novella in this collection, was a beautiful yet slow-paced re-introduction to his prose. As always, his characters are captivating; they speak and act unlike any characters you’ve read before, but have a startling reality to them. Regardless, the story itself wasn’t enough to keep me wanting more.

No One Write to the Colonel was a reread, but a much appreciated one. Immediately, I found the piece’s message and execution infinitely more poignant and powerful than the first. García Márquez demands our attention with his incisive critique. It’s both a hopeless story but manages to stay buoyant.

I loooooved Chronicle of a Death foretold. His fragmented storytelling shines through in the way I expected it to in Leaf Storm. I found myself laughing, my jaw dropping, everything. Can’t wait to reread it.

Overall, it was a 4 star collection (3 for Leaf Storm, 4 for No On Writes, 5 for Chronicle of a Death Foretold).

[Anne-Marie · Rating 4 out of 5]

The collected novellas in this publication includes "Leaf Storm," "No One Writes to the Colonel," and "Chronicle of a Death Foretold."

This collection shows what a novella should be!
Each was fantastic, enveloping the reader in the sluggish heat of Colombia, entrancing you with the lives of unforgettable characters.

While there is significantly less magical realism in the stories as experienced in some of his full length novels, many of the same themes, places, and even characters show up in their early forms (notably Colonel Aureliano Buendia).

It was so wonderful returning to the beauty of Garcia Marquez's writing that I'm sad to leave it once again.

If you only read one story of the three, read "No One Writes to the Colonel" - the author is quoted as "having written One Hundred Years of Solitude so that people would read 'No One Writes to the Colonel.'"

Overall, 4.5 stars!

[Harry Bishop · Rating 3 out of 5]

Shmeh. I think his novels are a lot better which makes sense. Also my personal taste doesn’t match well with these books. Leaf Storm definitely makes sense as his first novela. Kinda gross which is what he’s going for, but I forgot how gross Macondo is after not reading a book set there for a while. His storytelling is also too advanced for my reading abilities… No One Write to the Colonel was nice but I don’t get the point of the plot. I like the characters at least and the storytelling is more digestible. Chronicle of a Death Foretold is good. The gross setting and circular storytelling work really well for the plot.

[Fred Kohn · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well, I guess I'm not much for magical realism, because in the main these stories didn't do much for me. I did look up each story on Wikipedia to see if there was something major in the plots of these stories, put pretty much what you see is what you get. I did enjoy "No One Writes to the Colonel" enough that I might give it 3.5 stars if it stood alone. Significantly for me, Wikipedia says that this particular novella has fewer features of magical realism than others of this author's work, which may explain why I liked it more.

[JL Ortiz Diaz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Esta colección de novellas es una excelente combinación de historias. Fue uno de los primero libros(en español) que lei por mi cuenta fuera de la escuela y puedo decir que fue una de las mejores decisiones que he tomado. Como muchas obras de esta autor, las historias y su descripción de Puerto Rico te hacen pegar a la pagina y no querer parar de leer. Como puertorriqueño me enorgullece leer sus historias y saber que tal prócer vino de nuestra pequeña islita.

[Lilia Anderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This man never fails to amaze me. His prose and voice is wise and gentle. This would be five stars if it weren't for Leaf Storm... it was quite circular. It was still amazing, but was hard to stay interested at times.

These novellas convey the dynamics, drama, trauma, pain, and love that small towns possess. Chronicle of a Death Foretold is so incredible, even more so on read number 2.

[Melissa Caruso · Rating 1 out of 5]

Almost on every page, I had to remind myself I was reading and to pay attention. I chose gabriel garcia marquez because he is a classic name in the literary canon but I am not quite sure what I gained from reading this collection. Not a fan. I was reading a book a week and then I got to this and kept avoiding it.