No one writes to the colonel: the historical realism of Gabriel García M´árquez

Abstract

No one writes to the Colonel (1958) seeks to combine, in its ninety-few pages, events of Colombia's recent history, the human dimension of an old man who was once at the top of a hierarchy, and now represents nothing, with the material scarcity of a family whose life balance is a dead child. Thus, and using György Lukács' impressions of the historical novel, we seek to defend the isolation and privation, which are the theme and the form of this Garciamarquean narrative, as the representation of the totality of a specific historical period that will engulf the characters, consume their forces and feed on their apparent inaction.