Decolonization and Demystification: One Hundred Years of Solitude and Nationhood

This essay aims to explore how the interconnected issues of nationhood and national identity are treated in Gabriel García Márquez's novel Cien años de soledad (One Hundred Years of Solitude). Through a discussion of the two basic yet complex themes of reality and history set against the exclusive backdrop of Colombian history, it is also intended to show how the author reinscribes the myth of nationhood by decentering what Jean-François Lyotard terms the metanarratives of the West, while simultaneously demystifying the monolithic concept of national identity in this work.