LITC Book Review: Chronicle of a Death Foretold

Chronicle of a Death Foretold
by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

As the library's Writer in Residence, I use my time in the stacks to familiarize myself with celebrated authors and award wining pieces of
literature. I can say without reservation that Gabo’s Chronicle of a Death Foretold is every bit deserving of its Nobel Prize. Journalistically, through a series of facts and firsthand accounts, he crafts a non-linear story just as descriptive and engrossing as any of his romantic epics. Delivering on the promises made by its title, Marquez recants the events leading up to the death of our story's would-be protagonist, Santiago Nasar, a moderately wealthy man-about-town. Masterfully, Marquez manages to tell us the same story more than once and keep it interesting, each go around revealing enough information to satisfy the reader’s curiosity. We’re turned into silent voyeurs desperately trying to seek out the sordid details of this gruesome murder as Gabo’s nameless narrator pieces together the snapshot in his mind. Every young journalist should be made to read this book if only to explore the limits of the medium. With Chronicle we are reminded that writing can be primarily informative without foregoing the art of storytelling, a lesson that compliments so beautifully the sense of magical-realism present in all of Marquez’s work.

Rating:
out of 4 Cobras