'It was inevitable: the scent of bitter almonds always reminded him of the fate of unrequited love.' Fifty-one years, nine months and four days have passed since Fermina Daza rebuffed hopeless romantic Florentino Arizo's impassioned advances and married Dr. Juvenal Urbino instead. During that half century, Florentino has fallen into the arms of many delighted women, but has loved none but Fermina. Having sworn his eternal love to her, he lives for the day when he can court her again. When Fermina's husband is killed trying to retrieve his pet parrot from a mango tree, Florentino seizes his chance to declare his enduring love. But can young love find new life in the twilight of their lives?
'No lover of fiction can fail to respond to the grace of Marquez's writing' Sunday Telegraph
'A love story of astonishing power and delicious comedy' Newsweek
'An amazing celebration of the many kinds of love between men and women... among Marquez's best fiction' The Times
'One of this century's most evocative writers' Anne Tyler
'A delight. The interlocking of the stories, the fantastical and obsessional aspects of Marquez have never been better shown.' Melvyn Bragg
'Few have written so passionately about the power of love' Independent
Author
About Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Gabriel García Márquez was born in 1928 in the town of Aracatca, Colombia. Latin America's preeminent man of letters, he is considered by many to be one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century. He began his writing career as a journalist and is the author of numerous works of fiction and nonfiction, including One Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera. Gabriel Márquez was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982.
