Macondo
Encyclopedia
For the oil spill, see: Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explosion
Macondo is a fictional town described in Gabriel García Márquez
's novel
One Hundred Years of Solitude
. It is the home town of the Buendía family.
. Aracataca is located near the north (Caribbean) coast of Colombia
, 80 km South of Santa Marta
. Macondo was the name of a banana
plantation
near Aracataca, and means "banana" in the Bantu
language. Macondo is also the name of the tree Cavanillesia platanifolia
, which grows in the Aracataca area and is so known there.
In June 2006, the people of Aracataca organized a referendum to change the name of the town to Aracataca Macondo. Although the yes vote won, the referendum failed because of lack of voters and Aracataca kept its traditional name.
"Leaf Storm
". It is the central location for the subsequent novel One Hundred Years of Solitude. He has since used Macondo as a setting for several other stories.
In Evil Hour
, published the year before One Hundred Years of Solitude, mentions Macondo as the town where Father Ángel was succeeded by the one hundred year old Antonio Isabel del Santísimo Sacramento del Altar Castañeda y Montero, a clear reference to the novel to come.
Early in the 1974 film Chinatown, Jake Gittes spies on Hollis Mulwray at the fictional "El Macondo Apartments". Production director Richard Sylbert
says this was indeed a reference to the city of García Márquez http://paulioriohome.blogspot.com/2007/04/go-to-wwwpaulliorioblogspotcom.html.
Popular Russian rock band Bi-2
released as part of their 2006 album "Milk" ("Молоко") a song called "Macondo" ("Макондо"). The chorus repeats: "Rain was falling on Macondo, right in the middle of the century" ("На Макондо падал дождь, в самой середине века").
Bi-2 first obtained popularity in 2000, with the release of their first hit "No One Writes to the Colonel" ("Полковнику никто не пишет"), the title of a novella by Gabriel García Márquez.
The fall of Macondo comes first as a result of a four-year rainfall, which destroyed most of the town's supplies and image. During the years following the rainfall, the town begins to empty, as does the Buendía home.
Macondo is a fictional town described in Gabriel García Márquez
Gabriel García Márquez
Gabriel José de la Concordia García Márquez is a Colombian novelist, short-story writer, screenwriter and journalist, known affectionately as Gabo throughout Latin America. He is considered one of the most significant authors of the 20th century. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in...
's novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
One Hundred Years of Solitude
One Hundred Years of Solitude
One Hundred Years of Solitude , by Gabriel García Márquez, is a novel which tells the multi-generational story of the Buendía family, whose patriarch, José Arcadio Buendía, founds the town of Macondo, the metaphoric Colombia...
. It is the home town of the Buendía family.
Aracataca
Macondo is often supposed to draw from García Márquez's childhood town, AracatacaAracataca
Aracataca is a municipality located in the Department of Magdalena, in Colombia's Caribbean Region. Aracataca is a river town founded in 1885. The town stands beside the river of the same name, the Aracataca river that flows from the nearby Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta mountain range into the...
. Aracataca is located near the north (Caribbean) coast of Colombia
Colombia
Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...
, 80 km South of Santa Marta
Santa Marta
Santa Marta is the capital city of the Colombian department of Magdalena in the Caribbean Region. It was founded in July 29, 1525 by the Spanish conqueror Rodrigo de Bastidas, which makes it the oldest remaining city in Colombia...
. Macondo was the name of a banana
Banana
Banana is the common name for herbaceous plants of the genus Musa and for the fruit they produce. Bananas come in a variety of sizes and colors when ripe, including yellow, purple, and red....
plantation
Plantation
A plantation is a long artificially established forest, farm or estate, where crops are grown for sale, often in distant markets rather than for local on-site consumption...
near Aracataca, and means "banana" in the Bantu
Bantu languages
The Bantu languages constitute a traditional sub-branch of the Niger–Congo languages. There are about 250 Bantu languages by the criterion of mutual intelligibility, though the distinction between language and dialect is often unclear, and Ethnologue counts 535 languages...
language. Macondo is also the name of the tree Cavanillesia platanifolia
Cavanillesia platanifolia
Cuipo TreeCavanillesia PlatanifoliaDescription:Cuipo is a very distinctive tree that is easy to spot and is located primarily in the Central American tropical rainforest's in mountainous areas. Its height ranges from 45 to 60 meters. It has leaves only at the topand is bare 11 months out of the...
, which grows in the Aracataca area and is so known there.
In June 2006, the people of Aracataca organized a referendum to change the name of the town to Aracataca Macondo. Although the yes vote won, the referendum failed because of lack of voters and Aracataca kept its traditional name.
Appearances
The town first appears in García Márquez's short storyShort story
A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...
"Leaf Storm
Leaf Storm
Leaf Storm is the common translation for Gabriel García Márquez's novella La Hojarasca. First published in 1955, it took seven years to find a publisher...
". It is the central location for the subsequent novel One Hundred Years of Solitude. He has since used Macondo as a setting for several other stories.
In Evil Hour
In Evil Hour
In Evil Hour is a novel by Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez, first published in 1962....
, published the year before One Hundred Years of Solitude, mentions Macondo as the town where Father Ángel was succeeded by the one hundred year old Antonio Isabel del Santísimo Sacramento del Altar Castañeda y Montero, a clear reference to the novel to come.
Early in the 1974 film Chinatown, Jake Gittes spies on Hollis Mulwray at the fictional "El Macondo Apartments". Production director Richard Sylbert
Richard Sylbert
Richard Sylbert was an Academy Award-winning production designer and art director, primarily for feature films....
says this was indeed a reference to the city of García Márquez http://paulioriohome.blogspot.com/2007/04/go-to-wwwpaulliorioblogspotcom.html.
Popular Russian rock band Bi-2
Bi-2
Bi-2 is a Russian rock band with Belarusian origin, formed in the 80's in Minsk, Belarus. It was one of the most successful with many sales and chart-hits in Russia. Bi-2 was awarded MTV Russian Music Awards for Best Rock Act in 2007.-Pre-history:...
released as part of their 2006 album "Milk" ("Молоко") a song called "Macondo" ("Макондо"). The chorus repeats: "Rain was falling on Macondo, right in the middle of the century" ("На Макондо падал дождь, в самой середине века").
Bi-2 first obtained popularity in 2000, with the release of their first hit "No One Writes to the Colonel" ("Полковнику никто не пишет"), the title of a novella by Gabriel García Márquez.
Fictional history
In the narrative of One Hundred Years of Solitude, the town grows from a tiny settlement with almost no contact with the outside world, to eventually become a large and thriving place, before a banana plantation is set up. The establishment of the banana plantation lead to Macondo's downfall, followed by a gigantic windstorm that wipes it from the map. As the town grows and falls, different generations of the Buendía family play important roles, contributing to its development.The fall of Macondo comes first as a result of a four-year rainfall, which destroyed most of the town's supplies and image. During the years following the rainfall, the town begins to empty, as does the Buendía home.
Other uses
- Given the town's association with magical realism, many Latin Americans would portray the everyday illogical or absurd news and situations they or their respective countries face as more aptly belonging to Macondo. As a result, some Latin Americans occasionally refer to their home towns or countries as Macondos.
- There is currently a restaurant in New York CityNew York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
called Macondo and themed after One Hundred Years of Solitude.
- Macondo is the name of a refugee settlement on the outskirts of Vienna, Austria. It has been home to successive waves of refugees since Hungarians came en masse in 1956, followed by Czech and Romanian waves in 1968, Vietnamese "Boat People" and Chileans fleeing Pinochet in the early 70s. Many of these refugees and their descendants still live in the settlement as "permanent refugees," while new waves from current headlining wars from around the world keep arriving: Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Chechnya etc. For more information: http://www.demokratiezentrum.org/de/index.html?idcatside=89&lang=2 or http://cabula6.com/ON%20EARTH/ONEARTHvienna.htm
- There is a small town in Angola, Africa called Macondo in the Moxico Province. http://www.fallingrain.com/world/AO/14/Macondo.html
- Macondo ProspectMacondo ProspectThe Macondo Prospect is an oil and gas prospect in the United States Exclusive Economic Zone of the Gulf of Mexico, off the coast of Louisiana...
is the name of an offshore oil drilling block within the Mississippi Canyon Area of the Gulf of MexicoGulf of MexicoThe Gulf of Mexico is a partially landlocked ocean basin largely surrounded by the North American continent and the island of Cuba. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United States, on the southwest and south by Mexico, and on the southeast by Cuba. In...
where a disastrous, fatal blowout on the Transocean Deepwater Horizon semisubmersible rig, contracted by BP plc, occurred on 20 April 2010. See Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explosion.