• by Gabriel García Márquez

• published in 1955, which was in the middle of La Violencia (1948-1958)

  • a period of political conflict in Columbia b/w Liberal and Conservative parties

  • 200K-300K casualties

  • said to be triggered by assassination of presidential candidate Jorge Eliécer Gaitán in 1948

  • led to the Bogotozo riots

  • extremely brutal

• "often referred to as the most Roman CAtholic of the South American countries" - Encyclopaedia Britannica

• prevailing movement of the 20th century is postmodernism

  • skepticism of narratives like objective truth, universal moral principles

  • subjectivism

  • relativism (knowledge/morality/meaning are dependant on the context in which they exist)

  • writing from this movement frequently convey a moral/political message

• magical realism is common in García Márquez's works

  • defined by the blurring of the line b/w fantasy and reality

• Gregory Rabassa translated Leaf Storm

  • his translation of One Hundred Years of Solitude was praised by García Márquez himself as being "superior to the spanish original"

What expectations do you have of it?

• similar to Chronicle of a Death Foretold, another one of García Márquez's works, which I have read

• classism, racism and magical realism may be prevalent