Solitude in Colombia
From Chile, we travel north along the Pacific coast of South America to Colombia with Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude
We have an image of isolation, one man alone at the end of his life, facing death. This image is paired with another, that as a child he lived in such an isolated place that he had never before seen ice. But in this sentence that speaks of isolation, we also see the word “father” and know that despite the solitude, there is family.
Marquez is a master of magical realism, and he magically creates this town of Macondo, deep in the belly of Colombia. Technology and spirituality meet to make magic in this isolated village.
The Spaniards first introduced the mystery of a world beyond the shores of South America and even shared their own spiritual mysteries, the magic of their Christ. Armed with a belief in miracles, the people in the isolated depths of the continent would enjoy centuries of mystery repeated as the outside world trickled in.