In a Caribbean port city in Colombia around the turn of the twentieth century, a shy telegraph clerk named Florentino Ariza falls hopelessly in love with Fermina Daza, a proud schoolgirl. They conduct a secret courtship through letters, but Fermina's ambitious father intervenes, and she eventually marries Dr Juvenal Urbino, a respected physician who leads the fight against cholera.
Florentino never stops loving her. Over the following decades he rises through a river shipping company, conducts hundreds of discreet affairs, and keeps waiting. The novel moves back and forth through the long marriage of Fermina and Urbino, with its comforts and quarrels, and through Florentino's parallel life, examining what love looks like in youth, middle age and old age.
Garcia Marquez drew partly on his own parents' courtship. The book is less fantastical than One Hundred Years of Solitude, but just as sensuous, full of humid streets, river steamers and decaying colonial houses. Edith Grossman's translation brought out its humour. Readers debate whether Florentino's obsession is romantic constancy or something more troubling, which keeps the novel lively in discussion.
Book details
| Author | Gabriel Garcia Marquez |
|---|---|
| First published | 1985 |
| Original language | Spanish |
| Translated by | Edith Grossman |
| Genre | Literary fiction |
| Type | Fiction |
| Pages (approx.) | 348 |
| Setting | An unnamed Caribbean port city in Colombia, late 1800s to 1930s |
Themes
- Enduring love
- Ageing
- Marriage
- Obsession
- Time
Who should read it
Readers who enjoy sweeping, sensual love stories that take decades to unfold.