Gabriel García Márquez in The Language of Scheherezade

The novel “One Hundred Years of Solitude” by Gabriel García Márquez has transcended borders and cultures, being translated into more than 49 languages, including Arabic.

The Arabic edition, entitled “مائة عام ن العزلة” (“Me’at ‘Aam min al-Uzlah”), has allowed the Arab world to access this masterpiece of magical realism.

The first translation of “One Hundred Years of Solitude” into this language was published in 1982, coinciding with the year in which García Márquez received the Nobel Prize for Literature. This version was made by the Egyptian translator Mohamed el-Hajj Khalil and published by the Lebanese publishing house Dar Al-Farabi.

The boundaries between García Márquez’ magic realism and Arabic literature has been significant. According to Abir Abdelhafez, professor of Hispanic American literature at the University of Cairo, this influence is not recent and dates back to the time of Al-Ándalus, where there was a cultural intercalation that facilitated the acceptance of magic in Arabic narrative.

In addition, collectors such as Jorge Iván Salazar have highlighted the importance of the Arabic edition of “One Hundred Years of Solitude” in their vast collection of the novel in multiple languages. Salazar has collected 379 editions in 48 different languages, including Arabic, reflecting the universality and global impact of García Márquez’s work.

The translation of a mythical novel by the Colombian writer and journalist into Arabic has been fundamental in bringing Latin American literature closer to the Arab world, two worlds geographically distant but close in human warmth, and evidencing the universality of the stories and emotions that García Márquez embodied in his work.