Netflix provided an early preview of their TV series adaptation of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s “One Hundred Years of Solitude” on Wednesday, coinciding with the Nobel Prize-winning author’s tenth death anniversary.
Published in 1967, the work is regarded as a classic that established “magical realism” as a literary genre and has been translated into 46 languages.
It follows seven generations of the Buendía family in the fictional Colombian town of Macondo.
“In the mythical town of Macondo, the Buendia family confronts a curse, madness and impossible love,” the streaming platform said on X.
No date has been given for the release of the 16-episode series, which was first announced in 2019 and filmed in Garcia Marquez’s home country, Colombia. Netflix said on its website the series is coming in 2024.
“In this sneak peek, we hear Aureliano Babilonia as he reads from the mythical diary of Melquiades and are transported to Macondo to witness Colonel Aureliano Buendia standing before a firing squad while he remembers that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice,” Netflix said in a statement.
“What follows are breathtaking scenes of Jose Arcadio Buendia and Ursula Iguaran’s journey in search of happiness, fleeing the curse placed upon their lineage.”
Garcia Marquez was a key member of the “Latin American boom” of authors in the 1960s and 1970s, which included Nobel laureates Octavio Paz of Mexico and Mario Vargas Llosa of Peru.
“One Hundred Years of Solitude” has sold around 50 million copies worldwide.
The late author’s sons, Rodrigo Garcia and Gonzalo Garcia Barcha, served as executive producers for the show.
“For decades our father was reluctant to sell the film rights” to the source material “because he believed that it could not be made under the time constraints of a feature film, or that producing it in a language other than Spanish would not do it justice,” Garcia stated at the time.
However, amid the current “golden age” of TV series, with outstanding writing and direction “and the acceptance by worldwide audiences of programs in foreign languages, the time could not be better,” he stated.
The series was shot entirely in Spanish and directed by Colombian Laura Mora and Argentine Alex Garcia Lopez.
“One Hundred Years of Solitude is one of the most ambitious productions in Latin America to date,” Netflix stated in a statement.
The series follows the author’s relatives’ March posthumous release of his final novel, “Until August.”