Ascent to Glory
How One Hundred Years of Solitude Was Written and Became a Global Classic
Columbia University Press
Ascent to Glory
How One Hundred Years of Solitude Was Written and Became a Global Classic
Columbia University Press
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, Álvaro 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. Shedding new light on the novel’s imagination, production, and reception, Ascent to Glory is an eye-opening book for cultural sociologists and literary historians as well as for fans of García Márquez and One Hundred Years of Solitude.
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, Álvaro 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. Shedding new light on the novel’s imagination, production, and reception, Ascent to Glory is an eye-opening book for cultural sociologists and literary historians as well as for fans of García Márquez and One Hundred Years of Solitude.
Ascent to Glory is an original and important book. It's very well written, theoretically complex, and advances a compelling explanation of the processes through which Cien Años de Soledad achieved the status of a classic. Alvaro Santana Acuña is going to be a well-known and respected scholar in cultural sociology for years to come. Claudio E. Benzecry, author of The Opera Fanatic: Ethnography of an Obsession
Gabriel García Márquez had a gift for friendship, and in Ascent to Glory Álvaro Santana-Acuña reveals the circle of friends and collaborators who helped bring One Hundred Years of Solitude into print, and he exposes the broader network of readers, reviewers, and agents of different kinds who made it one of the most beloved novels of the 20th century. García Márquez had a gift for storytelling and a gift for friendship, and Ascent to Glory is a revealing study of what can be achieved when the two come together. Stephen Enniss, Director of the Harry Ransom Center
In this work of love and true scholarship, Santana-Acuña opens new vistas for how to make sense of world literature today. In beautifully crafted prose, his meticulous analysis delights and enlightens about how it happens that creative work first gets legs and goes on to take new life and meaning again and again, for different people across many contexts and times. Academics and the general public alike will emerge from Ascent to Glory with a sense of satisfaction and improved understanding. I recommend it to all those who appreciate global works of art, literary or otherwise, or literature tout court. Michèle Lamont, past president of the American Sociological Association
García Márquez’s novel used the writer's own past to imagine, between the lines, a better future. As one of those sociologists who is a 'historian of the present,' Álvaro Santana-Acuña has reflected the Colombian writer's singular achievement. I believe his readers will be inspired to use this book, which is full of new ideas, to think more lucidly about the unusually challenging future that now lies before us, both in literature and in life. Gerald Martin, author of Gabriel García Márquez: A Life
I have been waiting for this book. One Hundred Years of Solitude is arguably the most influential novel of the last fifty years, but how did that happen? Álvaro Santana-Acuña’s extraordinary feat is to lay bare the mechanisms through which a great work of fiction becomes a whole culture. He has probably given us the definitive account of that miracle. Juan Gabriel Vásquez, author of The Shape of the Ruins: A Novel
Ascent to Glory is essential reading for anyone interested in Latin American literature in general and the life and work of Gabriel García Márquez in particular, but should also be of interest to anyone interested in culture and its workings (including star- and 'classic'-making). Complete Review
Placing García Márquez so carefully among the nuanced forces of Latin American literature, however, makes this an essential book for readers of Cien Años and a rewarding one for anyone interested in the globalization of world literature. World Literature Today
The book constitutes an enjoyable narrative that can be read by specialists and non-specialists alike. Journal of Cultural Analysis and Social Change
An essential work for admirers of One Hundred Years of Solitude as well as for those interested in examining the mechanisms of a text acquiring a global identity. Telegraph India
An intelligent, appealing, instructive book. St. Orberose
This is a book for those interested in the sociology of literature, Latin American literature in particular. Recommended. Choice
The book is well founded and attention grabbing, while its most important contribution is probably its perspective on cultural value and the classic: it emphasizes the social story which makes the artwork an integral part of people’s lives, accommodating both the creative act and the role of a multifaceted process of cultural brokerage. Cultural Sociology
If Santana-Acuña’s book is a love letter to One Hundred Years of Solitude and its fans, it’s also a love letter to those wizened enough to resist sanding off the jagged edges of history. Public Books
Ascent to Glory is that rarest of things, a readable and enjoyable scholarly book. ReVista: Harvard Review of Latin America
A compelling alternative critical approach to the study of literary classics in general. Latino Book Review
Stimulating, very informative, beautiful book! Al Femminile
Santana-Acuña unpacks how One Hundred Years of Solitude became a classic by arguing against the myth of the author as a 'solitary genius.' Latin American Literature Today
It is refreshing to read a book such as Santana-Acuña’s, which attempts a new take on [García Márquez's] classic, and indeed on classics in general. Modern Language Notes
Ascent to Glory is a work of unusual lucidity and depth. Hispania
Álvaro Santana-Acuña’s book is an excellent achievement, standing as a testimony to his exhaustive primary archival research. His writing is clear and accurate, and he manages to convey his infectious passion for his subject in concise terms, which are easily grasped by those outside of the academic sphere. European Journal of Cultural and Political Sociology
A tour de force....a major empirical contribution to the sociology of culture. American Journal of Sociology
Ascent to Glory is the result of extensive, dedicated, and patient research, and through it Santana-Acuña weaves together sources, discourses, and disciplines to tell a macro-level story about the creation of a work and its realization, dissemination, and continued presence in the world. Latin American Research Review
Introduction
Part I. From the Idea to the Book
1. Imagining a Work of Art
2. The Publishing Industry Modernizes
3. A Novel in Search of an Author
4. Networked Creativity and the Making of a Work of Art
Part II. Becoming a Global Classic
5. Controversy, Conflict, Collapse
6. A Novel Without Borders
7. Indexing a Classic
8. Ascent to Glory for Few, Descent to Oblivion for Most
Conclusion
Appendix: Why and How to Study Classics?
Acknowledgments
Notes
References
Index
Part I. From the Idea to the Book
1. Imagining a Work of Art
2. The Publishing Industry Modernizes
3. A Novel in Search of an Author
4. Networked Creativity and the Making of a Work of Art
Part II. Becoming a Global Classic
5. Controversy, Conflict, Collapse
6. A Novel Without Borders
7. Indexing a Classic
8. Ascent to Glory for Few, Descent to Oblivion for Most
Conclusion
Appendix: Why and How to Study Classics?
Acknowledgments
Notes
References
Index
- Read an article about the book in Aristegui [in Spanish]
- Read an article about the book in El Universal [in Spanish]
- Listen to Alvaro Santana-Acuna talk about how the pandemic in One Hundred Years of Solitude helps us understand the current world
- Read an excerpt from the book at LitHub
- Watch a video of Alvaro Santana-Acuna talking about the connections between Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Cuba
- Read an interview at Neglected Books about why and why not a book becomes a literary classic
- Read an interview with the author at Vice Versa Magazine [in Spanish]
- Listen to an interview with the author on Universidad Nacional de Colombia Radio [in Spanish]
- Watch a discussion on One Hundred Years of Solitude with Alvaro Santana-Acuna, Juan Cruz and Alma Guillermoprieto [in Spanish]
- Read an interview with the author at the ASA Culture Section website
- Read an interview with the author at Lattin Magazine [in Spanish]
- Watch the Harvard University Weatherhead Center for International Affairs virtual book event
- Read an article about the book in El Pais [in Spanish]
- Listen to an interview with the author on New Books in Latin American studies