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The Autumn of the Patriarch

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The Autumn of the Patriarch

By: Gabriel García Márquez
Narrated by: Michael Manuel
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About this listen

One of Gabriel García Márquez’s most intricate and ambitious works, The Autumn of the Patriarch is a brilliant tale of a Caribbean tyrant and the corruption of power.

From charity to deceit, benevolence to violence, fear of God to extreme cruelty, the dictator of The Autumn of the Patriarch embodies the best and the worst of human nature. Gabriel García Márquez, the renowned master of magical realism, vividly portrays the dying tyrant caught in the prison of his own dictatorship. Employing an innovative, dreamlike style, and overflowing with symbolic descriptions, the novel transports the listener to a world that is at once fanciful and real.

©1976 English translation © 1976 by Harper & Row Publishers, Inc. Used by permission of HarperCollins Publishers (P)2021 Blackstone Publishing European Fantasy Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Magic Magical Realism World Literature
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Unfortunately, this is not among the popular novels or most widely read. Although it is without a doubt the greatest literary work of the 20th century. Even Marquez himself thought it to be his greatest work. I read it 3 times, and now with the audiobook, I still experience the novel/epic like it was the very first time.
Finally, the narration was excellent! Indeed such a great book deserves such a great narration, one that truly captures the spirit of the book.

The greatest work of the 20th century

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This is, indeed, one of the greatest novels of the 20th century and - in my opinion - Marquez best. But the performance here is no better than adequate: monotonous and unimaginative. Furthermore, listening on headphones the ambience and recording quality jump about annoyingly, often from phrase to phrase, suggesting that the recording has been cobbled together from multiple inconsistent takes. After a couple of hours I gave up and just read the book…

Disappointing performance

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