Review: Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel García Márquez

20 Books of Summer: Book 3

I’ve been trying to finish a book by Gabriel García Márquez for years and—finally!—I have. Chronicle of a Death Foretold is one of his shorter books at 120 pages. Its premise is also much more straightforward and linear than that of 100 Years of Solitude or Love in the Time of Cholera. This book is a murder “mystery,” but the only mysterious thing about the death is that it was allowed to happen: On the morning before Santiago Nasar is murdered, everyone is gossiping about his upcoming death, but no one prevents it. No one warns Nasar because “No one even wondered if Santiago Nasar had been warned, because it seemed impossible to all that he hadn’t.” (20) read more