Although he died in 2014, the legendary Colombian writer and author of One Hundred Years of Solitude Gabriel García Márquez just released a new book. But this “lost” book wasn’t exactly lost. Struggling with dementia in the years before his death, the beloved author and Nobel laureate requested that his manuscript be destroyed. Ten years after his death, his sons decided to publish the book despite his father’s wishes, saying they believed it was a valuable work and should be shared with his readers and fans.

Titled En agosto nos vemos in Spanish, the book was released on what would’ve been Márquez’s 97th birthday. The translated English version, Until August, was published a few days later on March 12 and was his first book centered around a female protagonist. The rediscovered novel has been called “a moving tale of female desire and abandon” and has prompted debates about posthumous publications: Should it have remained unpublished? Or is it an opportunity for readers to finally say goodbye to the master of magical realism?

More about Until August

🎧 Audiobook version available

Sitting alone beside the languorous blue waters of the lagoon, Ana Magdalena Bach contemplates the men at the hotel bar. She has been happily married for 27 years and has no reason to escape the life she’s made with her husband and children. And yet, every August, she travels by ferry here to the island where her mother is buried, and for one night takes a new lover. Across sultry Caribbean evenings full of salsa and boleros, lotharios and conmen, Ana journeys further each year into the hinterland of her desire and the fear hidden in her heart.

Constantly surprising, joyously sensual, Until August is a profound meditation on freedom, regret, self-transformation, and the mysteries of love—an unexpected gift from one of the greatest writers the world has ever known.

Books by Gabriel García Márquez

One Hundred Years of Solitude

The novel tells the story of the rise and fall of the mythical town of Macondo through the history of the Buendía family. Rich and brilliant, it is a chronicle of life, death, and the tragicomedy of humankind. In the beautiful, ridiculous, and tawdry story of the Buendía family, one sees all of humanity, just as in the history, myths, growth, and decay of Macondo, one sees all of Latin America. Love and lust, war and revolution, riches and poverty, youth and senility, the variety of life, the endlessness of death, the search for peace and truth—these universal themes dominate the novel.

Love in the Time of Cholera

In their youth, Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza fall passionately in love. When Fermina eventually chooses to marry a wealthy, well-born doctor, Florentino is devastated, but he is a romantic. As he rises in his business career, he whiles away the years in 622 affairs—yet he reserves his heart for Fermina. Her husband dies at last, and Florentino purposefully attends the funeral. Fifty years, nine months, and four days after he first declared his love for Fermina, he will do so again.

Chronicle of a Death Foretold

A man returns to the town where a baffling murder took place 27 years earlier, determined to get to the bottom of the story. Just hours after marrying the beautiful Angela Vicario, everyone agrees, Bayardo San Roman returned his bride in disgrace to her parents. Her distraught family forced her to name her first lover; and her twin brothers announced their intention to murder Santiago Nasar for dishonoring their sister.

Yet if everyone knew the murder was going to happen, why did no one intervene to stop it? The more that is learned, the less is understood, as the story races to its inexplicable conclusion.

Strange Pilgrims

In Barcelona, an aging Brazilian prostitute trains her dog to weep at the grave she has chosen for herself. In Vienna, a woman parlays her gift for seeing the future into a fortune-telling position with a wealthy family. In Geneva, an ambulance driver and his wife take in the lonely, apparently dying ex-President of a Caribbean country, only to discover that his political ambition is very much intact.

No One Writes to the Colonel, and Other Stories

Written with compassionate realism and wit, the stories in this mesmerizing collection depict the disparities of town and village life in South America, of the frightfully poor and outrageously rich, of memories and illusions, and of lost opportunities and present joys. Stories include “No One Writes to the Colonel,” “Tuesday Siesta,” “One of These Days,” “There Are No Thieves in This Town,” “Balthazar’s Marvelous Afternoon,” “Montiel’s Widow,” “One Day after Saturday,” “Artificial Roses,” and “Big Mama’s Funeral.”

*Title availability may vary by library & region.

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