In La hojarasca, Macondo was born, that small town near the Colombian Atlantic coast that has already become one of the great myths of universal literature.
The story of an impossible burial takes place in Macondo. A strange character has died, a former doctor hated by the town, and an old retired colonel, in order to keep a promise, has decided to bury him despite the opposition of the entire town and its authorities. As in a Greek tragedy - the book has as its motto a quote from Antigone that recalls the prohibition of burying the body of Polynices - the old colonel, his daughter and his grandson are going to carry out the ominous task. The action, composed of the description of the preparations for the burial - a half hour - and the memories of a quarter of a century of the history of Macondo, from 1905 to 1928, is narrated through the thoughts of these three characters.
«Suddenly, as if a whirlwind had taken root in the centre of the village, the banana company arrived, pursued by the fallen leaves. It was a turbulent, agitated fallen leaf, formed by the human and material waste of other villages: the remains of a civil war that seemed increasingly remote and unlikely. The fallen leaves were relentless.»
