SOURCE: Williamson, Edwin. “The Myth of the Liberator.” Times Literary Supplement, no. 4581 (18 January 1991): 12.

In the following review, Williamson lauds the poetic narrative and accomplished storytelling in The General in His Labyrinth.

In The General in His Labyrinth Gabriel García Márquez displays once more his preoccupation with the condition of failure. The novel begins at the point where Simón Bolívar, the great hero of Spanish American Independence, realizes that everything he has fought for is lost; the dream of continental unity, of creating a single nation “from Mexico to Cape Horn,” has been shattered. Spurned and insulted by squabbling demagogues, Bolívar decides to leave the country and seek exile in Europe. The narrative relates his voyage from the highland capital down the Magdalena River to Cartagena de Indias on the Caribbean coast, a fateful journey that, in carrying him to the sea, leads to...