Why One Hundred Years of Solitude Is (Finally) a Hit in Japan
It’s been in print for almost 60 years now. So why did it take until 2024 for Gabriel García Márquez’s magnum opus to become a hit in Japan?
By Ebony Brown
Gabriel García Márquez’s masterpiece may be One Hundred Years of Solitude, but it took 50 years of circulation to become a bestseller in Japan. Find out how this internationally beloved novel finally took off.
A masterpiece no one was reading
One Hundred Years of Solitude has been a best-seller since its publication in 1967. The novel tells the story of the Buendia family and the fictional isolated town they found Macondo. Spanning multiple generations, it reflects on the rise and fall of both the family and town.
Colombian literary genius Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s magnum opus is considered one of the greatest novels ever written. Translated into 46 languages, with over 50 million copies sold worldwide, its status as a classic novel is undeniable.
However, for many years, that didn’t seem to help its sales in Japan.
The novel’s Japanese translation (百年の孤独; hyaku-nen no kodoku) was originally released in 1972. Tsuzumi Tadashi’s translation is praised for its deft use of the Japanese language, bringing to life the…
