Plukovníkovi nemá kdo psát – Márquez Gabriel García (2021)

The famous novella was first published in a magazine in 1958 and in book form three years later. The setting continues from All the Dirt in the World, but here a different narrative perspective emerges: while in the previous work, the fictional world of Macondo is described from the inside, in The Colonel it is portrayed from the outside, as if by an objective narrator. Although realism dominates the novella at first glance, we find real and fantastical elements together, much like the author's characteristic motifs. The life of the colonel, a former fighter from the civil war, is filled with suffering and poverty. Every week, for the past fifteen years, he has gone to the port and waited in vain for news that his pension has been granted. Previously, he was supported by his son, but now they have nothing to eat. The theme of his death and the depiction of the political situation are the most important elements of the story... Don Sabas, the godfather of the deceased son and party leader, escaped persecution. The colonel and his wife are, as they say, "orphans" of their murdered son. The colonel is determined to keep the rooster, the only inheritance from the deceased, so he can enter it in fights – but the interest of other characters in the best fighter in the district is also political. And so the town continues to live in an atmosphere of violence, secret resistance within, and armed actions in the field.