Garcia Marquez in 90 Minutes

Latin American literature was never primitive, yet from its beginnings it was suffused with a fresh, often childish lyricism. Garcia Marquez stands on the shoulders of a great Latin American literary heritage, but he is a modern rarity: a writer with aspirations to high art who also remains hugely popular. For those who fall under his spell, his novel One Hundred Years of Solitude is one of the richest literary dreams ever written. Its "magic realism" has influenced writers from New York to Paris to Tokyo with its endlessly imaginative vitality.

In Garcia Marquez in 90 Minutes, Paul Strathern offers a concise, expert account of Garcia Marquez's life and ideas, and explains their influence on literature and on man's struggle to understand his place in the world. The book also includes selections from Garcia Marquez's writings; a list of his chief works in English translation; a chronology of Garcia Marquez's life and times; and recommended reading for those who wish to push further.