Latin America and Magical Realism: The Insomnia Plague in Cien Años De Soledad

Communities of people have different ways of explaining the world around them and events that occur to them, and these codes for interpreting reality can clash when brought into contact with each other. Latin American writers and scholars have often said that such a clash produces the atmosphere we have come to label magical realist in literature; construing the theory in quite territorial terms, they have claimed that the specific circumstances of Latin America have produced magical realism.1In this essay, I explore the use of magical realism in a famous episode from García Márquez’s Cien años de soledad. The instance of the insomnia plague has fascinated readers and has attracted various interpretations from academics; these have usually been centred around cultural readings. I explore the passage from three distinct perspectives, cultural, historical and literary. García Márquez’s Cien años de soledad is a work rich in historical and literary sources, and in order to help determine the impact of political and cultural happenings upon his work, I have also referred extensively also to García Márquez’s recently published memoirs, which have enabled me to make reasoned judgments about the different spheres of influence upon García Márquez’s work.