Gabriel García Márquez’s ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’ is coming to Netflix

One of Gabriel García Márquez’s most popular magical-realism novels is coming to the screen.

On Wednesday, Netflix announced that it has obtained the rights to develop the Nobel Prize-winning author’s “One Hundred Years of Solitude” into a Spanish-language series. It will be the first time the seminal novel has been adapted for the screen since it was published in 1967 in Spanish as “Cien Años de Soledad.”

The series, which will mostly be filmed in the late author’s native Colombia, will be executive produced by the novelist’s sons, Rodrigo García and Gonzálo García Barcha.

As to why it took so long for the beloved novel to be adapted to the screen, Rodrigo García said in a Netflix statement: “For decades our father was reluctant to sell the film rights to Cien Años 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.”

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“One Hundred Years of Solitude” tells the multi-generational story of the Buendía family, whose patriarch founds Macondo, a fictional town in Colombia. It’s considered Márquez’s magnum opus and one of the 20th century’s most influential works in Latin American literature.

Since its publication, it has been translated into 46 languages and sold an estimated 50 million copies worldwide.

“We are incredibly honored to be entrusted with the first filmed adaptation of ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude,’ a timeless and iconic story from Latin America that we are thrilled to share with the world,” said Francisco Ramos, vice president of Spanish-language originals for Netflix.