The following version of this book was used to create the guide: Márquez, Gabriel García. Strange Pilgrims. First Vintage International, 2006.

Gabriel García Márquez's Strange Pilgrims is a collection of 12 short stories. Each of the enclosed works is written from a distinct point of view, and possesses its own narrative rules and structure. The following summary relies upon the present tense and a streamlined mode of explanation.

In "Bon Voyage, Mr. President," an ousted President from Martinique travels to Geneva in search of a resolution to his inexplicable pain. When the doctors inform him he needs an expensive surgery, he relies upon the couple Homero and Lázara for help. Although they initially want the President to give them money, they end up taking pity on the old man.

In "The Saint," when the narrator runs into Margarito in Rome 22 years after their first meeting, he begins reflecting on the past. Over two decades prior, Margarito was wandering the Italian city with his daughter's weightless body in a pine casket. The narrator was so intrigued by Margarito's attempts to canonize his daughter, he posed the tale to his film professor.

In "Sleeping Beauty and the Airplane," the narrator is seated next to a beautiful woman on his flight from Paris to New York. Desperate to talk to her, he is disappointed when she spends the entire flight sleeping.

In "I Sell My Dreams," while in Havana, the narrator hears about a woman who died in a tidal wave. Because she was found with a snake ring on her finger, he wonders if she is Frau Frieda, a dream interpreter he met years prior in Vienna.

In "'I Only Came to Use the Phone,'" when María's car breaks down on her way back to Barcelona, she ventures off in search of a phone. The place she ends up, however, is a mental institution. Rather than allowing her to borrow the phone, the staff locks her inside.

In "The Ghosts of August," the narrator and his family stay at a haunted castle. Although the narrator does not believe in ghosts, he wakes up inexplicably in the room where a murder-suicide occurred.

In "Maria dos Prazeres," ever since dreaming that she would soon die, Maria has been preparing for her death. When the circumstances of her life begin to resemble those from her dream, she realizes the dream may not have been predicting her death after all.

In "Seventeen Poisoned Englishmen," after her husband's death, Prudencia becomes convinced that the only thing that will quell her sorrow is to travel to Italy to see the Pope. Throughout her time in Italy, however, Prudencia becomes increasingly overwhelmed by the country's seeming indifference to violence.

In "Tramontana," the narrator is surprised by how terrified locals are of the tramontana winds and the village they pass through.

In "Miss Forbes's Summer of Happiness," the narrator and his brother hate their nanny Miss Forbes so much, they decide to poison her wine. Although she drinks the wine, Miss Forbes ends up dying at the hands of her impassioned lover.

In "Light Is Like Water," not long after two young boys receive a rowboat from their parents, they drown themselves and their classmates when they flood their fifth-floor apartment with light.

In "The Trail of Your Blood in the Snow," on Nena's and Billy's drive to Paris, Nena's finger will not stop bleeding. Billy takes her to the hospital, but the doctors will not let him inside. He spends days waiting to visit his wife, only to learn that she died hours after her admission.