Netflix Is Adapting One Hundred Years of Solitude—And We're Torn

From Oprah Magazine

When Netflix announced today that they've acquired the rights to develop Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude into a Spanish language TV series, my immediate reaction was joy. And then my second thought was...wait a minute. This is a literary classic, one that set the stage for Latino authors and created an entire genre. Can a TV series ever really do that justice?

One Hundred Years of Solitude tells the story of seven generations of the Buendía family, whose patriarch, José, is on a mission to found the fictional town of Macondo in Colombia. The novel is one of the first works that helped popularize a literary style that blurs the line between fiction and reality and would become known as the genre "magical realism." Along with writers Carlos Fuentes and Mario Vargas Llosa, Marquez was part of the Latin American literature boom of the '60s and '70s, a period that would open the doors for future writers like Isabel Allende.

Like me, Twitter had mixed reactions to the news-which came on what would have been Marquez, aka Gabo's, 92nd birthday. While some were glad to see the literary lion's work get new life, others worried that a TV series would only water down a monumental piece-especially considering that while he was alive, Garcia Marquez never gave up the TV or movie options for One Hundred Years of Solitude.

But, according to The Hollywood Reporter, the series will be set in Colombia and Marquez's sons Rodrigo Garcia and Gonzalo Garcia Barcha will executive produce the series, and believe strongly that now is the time for a One Hundred Years movie-and that Netflix is the best place for it.

"For decades our father was reluctant to sell the film rights to Cien Anos de Soledad because he believed that it could not be made under the time constraints of a feature film, or that producing it in a language other than Spanish would not do it justice,” Garcia said in a statement. "We are excited to support Netflix and the filmmakers in this venture, and eager to see the final product."

One Hundred Years of Solitude was an Oprah's Book Club pick in 2004 (another Marquez novel, Love in the Time of Cholera, made the OBC list in 2007). It's also one of many Marquez works that led the author to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1982 "for his novels and short stories, in which the fantastic and the realistic are combined in a richly composed world of imagination, reflecting a continent's life and conflicts."

So regardless, one thing is clear: Fans hope that Netflix will do Marquez and his art justice. As for me? I'll be tuning in to every single episode-admittedly while wearing my skeptical glasses. Still, with technology plus Netflix's great track record for original projects (looking at you, Roma), there's a major chance that seeing One Hundred Years of Solitude brought to life could be magical, indeed.

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