Nobel laureate Gabriel García Márquez crafts a mesmerizing meditation on love’s endurance in this lush, lyrical novel. Set in an unnamed Caribbean port city across five decades, the story unfolds as a love triangle—and a testament to obsession, passion, and the passage of time.
The novel begins when Florentino Ariza, a hopeless romantic and poet, is rejected by the beautiful Fermina Daza in their youth. Though she marries the distinguished doctor Juvenal Urbino, Florentino vows to wait for her “for fifty-one years, nine months, and four days.” Through wars, cholera epidemics, and countless affairs (documented in Florentino’s secret ledger), his love remains stubbornly alive.
Márquez blends magical realism with biting satire, contrasting Florentino’s idealized devotion with the messy realities of aging and desire. The prose shimmers with tropical heat, decaying mansions, and the scent of almonds, while themes of death, memory, and redemption pulse beneath the surface.
A masterpiece of romantic irony, Love in the Time of Cholera questions whether love is a sublime force or a self-created disease—and whether the difference matters.
