Few novels have received such warm praise from politicians, writers, critics and artists as One Hundred Years of Solitude did in the 50 years since its publication. The family epic set in the fictitious Latin American village of Macondo touched lives across the globe, having sold around 50 million copies worldwide.

The third most translated Spanish book according to the UNESCO, One Hundred Years of Solitude inspired a new literary genre, is regularly mentioned as a favorite book by politicians and celebrities and eventually won its author, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, a Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982.

Marquez’s publisher, Editorial Sudamericana, ordered the printing of 8,000 copies that started selling on May 30, 1967 and quickly sold out.

“When my Spanish publisher told me he was going to print 8,000 copies I was stunned, because my other books had never sold more than 700,” Marquez recalled in a 1981 interview with The Paris Review. “I asked him why not start slowly, but he said he was convinced that it was a good book and that all 8,000 copies would be sold between May and December. Actually they were all sold within one week in Buenos Aires.”

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