Abstract
Gabriel García Márquez’s novel "One Hundred Years of Solitude" seemed destined for obscurity upon its publication in 1967. The little-known author, small publisher, magical style, and setting in a remote Caribbean village were hardly the usual ingredients for success in the literary marketplace. Yet today it ranks among the best-selling books of all time. Translated into dozens of languages, it continues to enter the lives of new readers around the world. How did "One Hundred Years of Solitude" achieve this unlikely success? And what does its trajectory tell us about how a work of art becomes a classic? "Ascent to Glory" is a groundbreaking study of "One Hundred Years of Solitude," from the moment García Márquez first had the idea for the novel to its global consecration. Using new documents from the author’s archives, an interdisciplinary methodology, and innovative theoretical framework, Santana-Acuña shows how García Márquez wrote the novel, going beyond the many legends that surround it. He unveils the literary ideas and networks that made possible the book’s creation and initial success. Santana-Acuña then follows this novel’s path in more than seventy countries on five continents and explains how thousands of people and organizations have helped it to become a global classic.
Short-bio
Álvaro Santana Acuña is associate professor of sociology at Whitman College and instructor at Harvard Summer School. He is the author of “Ascent to Glory: How One Hundred Years of Solitude Was Write and Became a Global Classic”, a detailed study on the creation and global consecration of García Márquez's masterpiece, One Hundred Years of Solitude. Santana Acuña is co-editor with Rodríguez Morató of "La nueva sociología de las artes" and "Sociology of the arts in action". He is also the winner of several awards from the American Sociological Association.